CGAL users discussion list

[Andreas Fabri <>]

Bo Schwarzstein wrote:
> Hello everyong,
>     CGAL is really a very very useful tool. Could I use this library in 
> our in-house film renderer of my company ? I means whether the licence 
> allow we use CGAL for commecial propose ?
>  
> Thanks.


Hello Bo,

The open source license we have chosen for CGAL is QPL, just as for Qt
(which is also distributed under GPL).

This license implies that whenever you make software using CGAL this
software must also be distributed on our request, and it must be distributed
under an open source license as well.

We have commercial users who get a free ride, as they have no problem
to distribute their software.

We have "non-commercial" academic users who buy a commercial license
as they do not want to publish their code, as they plan to commercialise
it after their research is finished.

It sounds theoretical that "you must distribute on our request", as if
we do not even know who you work for, we will have a hard time to track
you down, and even if we do, it will be hard to prove that there is any
software using CGAL inside your company, so the risk is low, but it is
illegal.


best regards,

andreas