Excel Object Library Licensing

[aliinal]

Is it legal to distribute excel object libraries (e.g. excel9.olb) with our applications?

Anyone has an idea or an article on this?

 

[bjd4jc]

does excel9.olb even work when Office isn't installed on a computer?

 

[CCLINT]

NO! Not with VB6. Regardless if Excel is installed or not. [/b][/i][/u]*******************************************************
_{General remarks:
If this post contains any suggestions for the use or distribution of code, components or files of any sort, it is still your responsibility to assure that you have the proper license and distribution rights to do so!}

 

[vb5prgrmr]

There is a list in the documentation of VB that lists everything that you can freely distribute.

Look for REDIST.TXT under the Microsoft Visual Studio folder.

You can probably distribute your program without royality rights if the destination machine has a licensed version of MSExcel installed.

Try Microsoft, and look for your file and licensing.

 

[CCLINT]

>>You can probably distribute your program without royality rights if the destination machine has a licensed version of MSExcel installed.<<

The is the understanding that I have from MS. You can reference the Object (use CreateObject), but you may not distribute the Object.
[/b][/i][/u]*******************************************************
_{General remarks:
If this post contains any suggestions for the use or distribution of code, components or files of any sort, it is still your responsibility to assure that you have the proper license and distribution rights to do so!}

 

[strongm]

Erm...you do know that

a) the object library is merely (simplifying a little) a collection of class definition templates, and contains no Excel code; and that

b) every installation of Excel will already have a copy of the relevant object library?

The upshot being that - even were you allowed to - distributing excel.olb to a machine that does not have Excel installed won't do you any good at all. And there's no point distributing it to a machine that does have Excel because that machine will already have a copy of the appropriate olb file.

The following link provides Microsoft's view:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q249843&

 

[CCLINT]

>>Erm...you do know that<<

Yes, no one said that this isn't so. Or are you talking to aliinal?

My point is that even though the object is of no use with-out Excel installed, you still may not distribute the object.

Reason being: the client may not have a licensed version of Excel. The same is for most MS products. You need the license to distribute, regardless what the client has or doesn't have. [/b][/i][/u]*******************************************************
_{General remarks:
If this post contains any suggestions for the use or distribution of code, components or files of any sort, it is still your responsibility to assure that you have the proper license and distribution rights to do so!}

 

[strongm]

Yes, I'm commenting to the original question.