Education and Research Licensing

Commercial / Licences
1

Hello,

I am a researcher in at a large university and would like some clarifications for how the license structure applies to education and research.

As an educator:

  1. I assign students to complete homework using JUCE. They submit source code and binaries to me to turn in the homework. The students’ binaries and source code are not published openly, only to me. I believe this is under AGPL since I am receiving both source code and binaries.
  2. I ask students to provide feedback on each others work. They may send each other binaries to do this. They do not share source code since that could allow them to steal each others’ work/cheat. Does this require licenses?
  3. I ask students to record screen capture of their work with JUCE and turn it in as documentation of a final project. Does this require any licenses?
  4. I invite industry experts to help grade and give feedback on final projects at the end of the term. The students send binaries to these individuals, we provide access via remote desktop, or some of them can maybe come in-person to try out the work. Because we are not sending source code to the graders, do we need to buy licenses for each student?
  5. If we need to buy licenses for each student, which tier do we have to buy? The total revenue/funding of the university is astronomical, but in no way does that entire amount trickle down to these homework assignments/projects, which won’t be sold. Even $40/person is not really possible let alone $175.
  6. If we buy licenses for the students, what happens after the class ends? The university does not own student work created in classes, but the university would have bought the JUCE license. If a student wants to eventually turn their project into a product, what do they need to do?
  7. If we run the class every year and need licenses, how do we rotate them?

As a researcher:

  1. We send a beta binary along with source code to collaborators at other universities. This is not published openly. I believe this is under AGPL since we are sending both binary and source code.
  2. We send binaries to other collaborators within our university to evaluate it. They aren’t working on any code but are providing feedback. Do we need to buy a license?
  3. We want to openly distribute some binaries (for free) that demonstrate our research. Because we are not distributing source code, do we need to buy a license?
  4. Similar to the pricing question for educators, how do we determine which level to purchase? The university takes in lots of funds as a whole, but each project within each research lab is often working from small or restrictive grants.

Some clarification on how the license applies to educational institutions would be greatly appreciated. Right now I am scared to introduce or recommend JUCE because of these risks.

An educational tier or license would also really simplify this. The Qt Educational License is a good example of this I think: Qt Educational License | For Teachers and Students. That one says very clearly:

“Educational Use” shall mean the use of Licensed Software for the purposes of learning, teaching, research and development as part of educational instruction.

It also very clearly allows applications to be distributed for non-commercial purposes for the purpose of education/research.

Thank you!

2

Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer.

It seems that AGPLv3 does not work in some cases, as you need to distribute the source code with the binary under AGPLv3.

However, I think you can ask each student to hold a STARTER JUCE license. Of course they may choose a higher level license if they want to sell the product.

If the owner of a Licence is an individual, or an entity that does not have a separate legal identity from an individual, the applicable annual revenue or funding limit is the total revenue or funding generated by that individual or entity’s use of the Framework from all sources, including donations, sponsorship, advertising, and any other indirect revenue from their use of the Framework.

3

I’m not certain, but it’s likely that, if they need to turn it into a product, they can simply upgrade their license.

But it’s an interesting thought. Doesn’t GPL “infect” the code? IDK

We must have a few lawyers willing to provide wisdom on this forum.