(MCR Runtime) Can i sell my program?

Hello everyone,

I did a program in Matlab, and now I'm thinking of selling this program. To do this, I install MCR runtime on the computers that will receive my program.

Is there a legality or licensing issue that will not allow me to do this?

Thank you in advance.

[Rik]

The only people who can give a definitive answer are the Mathworks people themselves. You can contact support with the Contact Us button at the top of the page. (Although I'dd be interested to know a generalized answer as well)

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

If you used MATLAB Compiler or MATLAB Coder and you have a Commercial / Standard license, then Yes, it is fine to sell your program, provided it stays within the boundaries of not duplicating the functionality of MATLAB and similar restrictions given in the license terms.

For Academic licenses I am less clear. It would not be permitted to sell programs created with the Academic license to the general public or even other Academic institutions, but there is potentially some leeway to sell it within the institution, provided it was for the internal purposes of the institution. I do not expect that Mathworks would be happy with (for example) the institution selling interactive tutorials to students, but the lines can get pretty blurry when an institution works on a "cost centre" or "charge back" model where service groups have to keep themselves running by internal funds transfers for providing identifiable products or services. I would firmly recommend that any Academic situation involving payments or funds transfers for "programs" for internal use be discussed with Mathworks.

Under no circumstances may users of Student or Home licenses sell MATLAB code created using the license, not even in uncompiled form.

The above is with respect to using Compiler or Compiler SDK, ad those use MCR. The situation is the same for MATLAB Coder which does not use MCR.

Now one point to make clear is that it is not possible run regular MATLAB code with MCR without using the Compiler or Compiler SDK product. MCR is not just "MATLAB without the command line": it can only be used to run programs that have been converted to the encrypted internal data structures that MCR can execute.