I am an ISV and am planning to ship my product with Intel MPI Library. Do my customers have to buy the Intel MPI Library Development Kit in order to use my software?
No. There are currently 3 different models if ISVs want to ship with Intel MPI Library.
- An ISV can redistribute the runtime components of the Intel MPI Library available from the development kit (see the redist.txt file in the Intel MPI Library installation directory for list of redistributable files).
- If a customer would rather install the Intel MPI Library as a system component, the Runtime Environment Kit can be downloaded free of charge from the Intel MPI Library product page.
- The Intel MPI Runtime Library can be pre-installed by the vendor and shipped with the application.
What kind of licenses are available for Intel MPI Library?
The Runtime license includes everything you need to run Intel MPI-based applications. The license is free and permanent.
The Developer license includes everything needed to build and run applications. It is fee-based and permanent. It allows free redistribution of the components needed to run Intel MPI-based applications.
When is a Developer license required for Intel MPI Library?
The two kits (developer and runtime) can co-exist on a machine and it is fine for customers of Intel MPI-based applications to relink the application to include user subroutines. If the customer is actually writing MPI code (calling MPI_* functions directly), then a Developer license would be needed.
What should I do if I have a System Locked License?
If you have a system locked license, you cannot install the developer license directly on every node, as this would exceed the allowed number of activations. If you want to install to every node, you should install the developer kit on your head node, and then install the runtime kit on each of the compute nodes.
Keep in mind that a system locked license is also licensed only for a single individual's use, so if this cluster is used by others, you should install in a private location to prevent misuse. If you have additional licensing questions, please see the Licensing FAQ.