VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 16 2021 - 12:15:08 CST

Hi,
  The standard VMD license, as written, doesn't allow redistribution of
binaries to third parties. Out of curiosity, why are you distributing
your "program" in a docker container? If you made the program independently
available, then it would seem that any existing VMD user could download
and use it, and the license would not be a restriction. It's hard to guess
whether there may be various other practical solutions without knowing
a lot more than what you've stated below, but the suggestion I give above
is a straightforward solution, absent more details about what you're doing.

Best regards,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 02:37:57PM +0000, Arthur Pereira da Fonseca wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
>
>
> I developed a program to help me run some analysis on a dcd MD. This
> program uses mostly VMD to perform such analysis. Now I want to distribute
> this program to my research group and other people interested. Looking at
> the VMD's license file I saw:
>
>
>
> 2. Licensee may, at its own expense, create and freely distribute
> complimentary works that interoperate with the Software, directing
> others to
> the TCBG server to license and obtain the Software itself.
>
>
>
> The problem is I'm deploying my program as a Docker container, and I need
> a binary VMD included. Is it possible? Can I verify that the user got a
> license for VMD? Is there any framework that I can use to validate an
> user?
>
> 

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/