Using Telerik in Winforms Application which I want to sell to customers

[tar]

Hello,

I am a freelancer residing in Germany and the sole developer of a small application which is usable for (automated) Windows setup. Looking around for a nice and slick design I stumbled over the Telerik Winforms controls. But after checking your 500 pages EULA I am confused about your licensing policy and would like to know what exactly I would need in order to be legally allowed to use your Telerik Winforms components (esp. RadForm, RadPanel, RadButton, RadCheckbox, RadLabel, RadTextbox, RadTextControl, RadDropDownList, RadMultiColumnComboBox, RadGridView - all including a customized Fluent Dark design theme) within my own application which I want to sell to potentially customers globally - and hereby I want to avoid possible copyright infringements, of course.

I already know that I need to use ILMerge to hide the used Telerik .dll files within the released application but I do not know which or if any license is needed, at all, as the .dlls theirselves can be used without any license keys as you have mentioned on various articles/forum posts. Furthermore and as mentioned, it is only a small tool and I do not intend to modify the Telerik .dlls in any way.

Thanks a lot in advance and kind regards!

[Dess | Tech Support Engineer, Principal]

Hello,   

Indeed, the following article is quite useful about demonstrating how to redistribute an application using the Telerik UI for WinForms suite:
https://docs.telerik.com/devtools/winforms/deployment-and-distribution/redistributing-telerik-ui-for-winforms 

Since there are different approaches that can be followed (one of which is IlMerge), I believe that the easiest way to follow is: in case of commercial WinForms applications deployed to your end users, you may deploy the Telerik assemblies together with your application with the sole exception of the Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll assembly. The Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll assembly may not be deployed to end-users under any circumstance.

I hope this information helps. If you need any further assistance please don't hesitate to contact me. 

Regards,
Dess | Tech Support Engineer, Principal
Progress Telerik

[tar]

Hi Dess,

you are referring to the distribution article which I had already linked in my original question. This article does not answer which or if any license is needed - it only gives a dubious hint about "a limited run time royalty-free license" and "a need for discussion for products that do not add significant functionality to the Telerik RadControls" which I do not understand.

Meanwhile, I've send the same question via Progress contact form and will now write directly to sales@...

Thanks anyway and kind regards.

[Dess | Tech Support Engineer, Principal]

Hello, M,   

Yes, I just confirmed that this article lists all available options for redistributing. 

You need a license to develop your application with using the Telerik UI for WinForms suite. When it comes to redistributing to your end-users once the application is ready, it was previously noted that you may deploy the Telerik assemblies together with your application with the sole exception of the Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll assembly. The Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll assembly may not be deployed to end-users under any circumstance. Hence, you can provide the exe together with the Telerik assemblies except Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll. Your end users don't need a license, but you do.

If you have any further concerns, I would recommend you to contact our Sales team and they will give you the most appropriate legal advice regarding the license: [e-mail]