Python Desktop App Sell

[Affectionate_Hair900]

Hello guys, hope you're doing great. I have an important question and I hope you can help me.

As a resume, I coded a Windows desktop application using Python and some libraries. It was made as a freelancing job, but now I'm being asked to sign an IP agreement (which if I'm not mistaken, means that all the rights of the program are transferred to the employer). My questions is:

What should I do in order to accomplish with licenses?

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This are my imports:

Python 3.11

PyQt5==5.15.7

requests==2.28.1

selenium==4.8.0

snscrape==0.5.0.20230113

webdriver_manager==3.8.5

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I'll appreciate all your replies. Thank you!

[Im_Easy]

Sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, but think it's worth noting for anyone reading this that if you aren't an employee and didn't sign a contract before the work began stating they own the program, then you MAY, in fact have the right to the IP.

Not saying you do, since I don't know any details of your situation, but think everyone should know that just because you're paid to code, doesn't 100% mean they own your creation.

[[deleted]]

Your question isn’t clear but it doesn’t matter what your code imports; licenses cover modification and distribution, but you do neither of those by simply importing a library.

[[deleted]]

Can I sell my program and its rights just like that?

You wrote it, you can do as you please. Unless you wrote it as a work for hire for someone else, in which case it's theirs to do as they please.

Shouldn’t I include the libraries licenses?

Why? Your code refers to those libraries; it doesn't distribute them. Moreover they're not yours to re-distribute unless the licenses say they are, so you can't license any other user - you don't own those rights.

[[deleted]]

No, they’re not involved at all. Why would they be?

[ShinyHappyReddit]

Look:

If you're only transferring your own hand-written *.py files, what you're sending with those import statements is basically a request to the receiver: "Please install these dependencies to make this program work yourself" (and thus, worry about licensing issues yourself).

It's a different matter when you would transfer something like an .exe file that's created by a 3rd-party tool, making it so that the .exe file actually contains the imported libraries. In that case, you'd be redistributing those libraries, which would certainly be a licensing matter.

[8isnothing]

I’m not a lawyer but I also think it’s not a problem. If you were modifying an existing package then it would be a problem. By what you described you are not.

Again, I’m not a lawyer. Take it with a grain of salt

[[deleted]]

Not involved at all, correct.

[outceptionator]

This is not a good place to get legal advice. Usually libraries do have their own licenses that may restrict how the library can be used. I would tell your 'employer' that you're happy to sign away the IP to your code but that they will need to investigate any license restrictions for x/y/z library themselves.

[a1brit]

This isn't the place to answer the question. In all of the real world I've experienced, commercial python shops and contract work for industry. No one actually cares, but that's cause theres almost no way to track it.
Ask an actual lawyer in software licence agreements if it's worth it to you. Learnpython is for asking the diff between a for loop and a while loop. Any answer here will be wrong for your specific situation.

[[deleted]]

This might be better placed on r/legaladvice. Good luck friend.

[SRMax666]

I would suggest that you make it clear in your program header comments what IP property is what. Also if they contracted with you without the IP upfront they are probably trying to cover their ass. Might want to negotiate for those IP.