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SDK and SoftDevice licenses

Max

Hello,

Since this seems to be a very hard topic to find info about (its very contradictory and confuse) I'd like to ask a Nordic employee directly.

I'm planning to build a product that will use the NRF51822 MCU.

I'd like to use it's BLE functionalities.

My question is, from what I've gathered around reading, I can't share headers/source code that uses SDK stuff.

Is there any problem with selling the chip, as part of the product, already flashed with a softdevice + application ?

The code itself would not be shared in anyway (we plan to keep it closed source).

Would there be any limitations?

  • 0 in reply to Roger Clark

    Yes, you can. if you wait few days Nordic will answer, alternatively set-up account on their "closed" support forum and submit ticket there (MyPage zone at their main website).

  • 0 in reply to endnode

    Converted this one to answer since it resumes the answer to my question.

    I did indeed think it would be illogical to not be able to use SD in production, so this sums it up.

    Thank you @endnode and @Roger Clark for answering me!

  • 0 in reply to Roger Clark

    Read the SoftDevice license

    "1. Grant of License Subject to the terms in this Agreement Nordic grants Licensee a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub licensable, revocable license ("License"): (a) to use the SoftDevice solely in connection with a Nordic integrated circuit, and (b) to distribute the SoftDevice solely as integrated in Licensee Product. Licensee shall not use the SoftDevice for any purpose other than specifically authorized herein. It is a material breach of this agreement to use or modify the SoftDevice for use on any wireless connectivity integrated circuit other than a Nordic integrated circuit. "

    So.. You can only use the SD in the Nordic MCU, and this has to be part of a "Product".

    IMNAL, but I think this means you can't ship an MCU only with the SD on it. It needs to be part of a product i.e your software needs to also be on the nRF51822

  • 0 in reply to Roger Clark

    Well my plan is to add a nrf51822 to a designed PCB with other stuff. Code from the SDK/SoftDevice will only be used in the NRF51822 and it will be part of a bigger product (keyboard) so I believe it complies?

  • 0

    Hey Max,

    You can ship your product with the SoftDevice and application.

    Our SDKs used to have a "sub-optimal" licence agreement which actually prevented any customer from using any part of our SDK in their products. We have never pursued any legal action based on this SDK license because that would chase away all our customers. We have updated our license agreement to include 3-, 4- and 5-clause agreements for various examples that uses closed source libraries. The licenses states that you are only allowed to used our SD + SDK in a Nordic product, and that you are not allowed to modify or re-engineer closed sourced libraries and the SoftDevices.

    The other guys who have answered are also correct :)

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