[Qgis-developer] QGIS SZIP.DLL Licensing?

[Moriarty, Mark F]

Does QGIS have any license agreement related to SZIP use?

I'd like to use QGIS on a project, but we're stuck on whether/how the szip.dll is licensed for use.

For example HDF specifically has a license page asserting permission to use szip in their distribution, so long as it is used within the context of their overall app.  For a commercial firm, the permission is just to decode, not to encode, but that is fine.

I tried just deleting/renaming the szip.dll, since we do not actually need the functionality for our use, but it appears to be tightly bound to the build - qgis errors-out if it does not detect a proper, functioning, szip.dll on startup.

If there isn't a license statement from the intellectual property owner allowing its use/distribution to decode with qgis, is it possible to include a user-controllable switch to allow not including it, or to perhaps include a true GPL zip package, albeit losing the lossless functionality?

Thanks.

Mark

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