Below is more definitive advice on licensing of plugins you make for ChimeraX from Tom Ferrin, the professor who heads the ChimeraX development lab.  To summarize, you can license your plugin however you choose, but you cannot redistribute ChimeraX itself.  Your customers will have to separately obtain ChimeraX.  For academic researchers ChimeraX is free, but for commercial entities there is a fee to license ChimeraX.

   https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/commercial_license.html

Tom Goddard

ChimeraX developer

From: Tom Ferrin 

Subject: Re: Fwd: [chimerax-users] Inquiry on Commercial Licensing for ChimeraX Plugin Development

Date: January 24, 2024 at 2:36:47 PM PST

We explicitly keep silent on the licensing of ChimeraX plugins specifically because we don't want to interfere with what ever licensing a developer may want to do. In other words, it's fine by UCSF if Oomii wants to commercially license their AR plugin. The only red flag is Mr. Chen's statement "our intention is to offer the developed bundle for commercial sale to other users." UCSF does not permit others to redistribute ChimeraX, so licensing a "bundle" that includes ChimeraX would not be allowed. Thus the "other users" would need to license ChimeraX from UCSF and license the AR plugin from Oomii.

--tom

On Jan 24, 2024, at 1:27 AM, Tristan Croll <tcroll@altoslabs.com> wrote:

Hi all,

It’s been quite a while since I had to think about any of this, but my recollection is that UCSF was almost entirely hands-off regarding third-party plugin licensing (ISOLDE makes extensive use of the ChimeraX Python and C++ APIs). As long as the end user has a license for ChimeraX, as far as I’m aware the plugin developer is free to set more or less whatever license terms they like, as long as they’re legally sensible. They definitely don’t ask for any rights over your software nor any share in the revenue stream.

Best,

Tristan 

On Tue, 23 Jan 2024 at 02:52, Tom Goddard <goddard@sonic.net> wrote:

Hi Jacky,

  I am not sure how the licensing of commercial bundles works.  I think the ISOLDE ChimeraX bundle is commercially licensed to companies and Tristan Croll who wrote that bundle may have some ideas about how that works.

  I am the developer of the builtin ChimeraX virtual reality and augmented reality (https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/data/looksee-mar2023/looksee.html) capabilities and if you have technical questions about AR/VR in ChimeraX I am happy to discuss.

Tom

On Jan 21, 2024, at 6:02 PM, Jacky Chen via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:

Dear Team ChimeraX,

 

My name is Jacky Chen, and I am the sales representative at Oomii. Recently, we initiated a project aimed at developing an innovative ChimeraX plugin, specifically designed to enable interactive augmented reality features. To this end, Oomii has acquired two commercial licenses of ChimeraX in January 2024.

 

As we progress, our intention is to offer the developed bundle for commercial sale to other users. However, upon reviewing the documentation available at:

https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/devel/writing_bundles.html,

we noticed that it does not specify the licensing particulars for a bundle that utilizes both the ChimeraX API and proprietary code developed by Oomii.

 

We are keen to ensure that our operations align with ChimeraX's licensing policies. Could you please provide guidance on the business rules that apply to the commercial distribution of such plugins? Additionally, if available, could you direct us to any precedent or contact information for companies that have navigated similar pathways?

 

Your assistance in this matter is invaluable to us, and we eagerly await your insights.

 

Thank you very much for your time and support.

 

Warm regards,

Jacky Chen 陳志傑

Sales Representative 

jackychen@oomii.com

2F.-1, No.94, Baozhong Rd. Xindian Dist., New Taipei City, Taiwan 23144

+886-2-8911-2347

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