Third-Party Components

AntScopeZ’s own code is a combination of the original AntScope2 codebase (Copyright 2016-2020 Rig Expert Ukraine Ltd. – also mirrored standalone at licenses/AntScope2/, alongside the other component license folders below, since it’s the license of the codebase AntScopeZ was forked from) and everything written or modified by the AntScopeZ project since (Copyright 2026 K4HEZ). Both are licensed under the MIT terms in LICENSE.txt. The AntScopeZ application, as compiled and distributed, is licensed as a whole under the GNU General Public License v3 or later (COPYING) because it statically incorporates GPLv3 components listed below.

This file lists every third-party component that ends up inside the distributed AntScopeZ package – whether its source lives in this repository (QCustomPlot, HIDAPI, the FTDI driver package) or it’s pulled in as prebuilt binaries at packaging time (Qt) – grouped by which platform build actually uses it, so that anyone building AntScopeZ for a platform other than the one the original authors targeted knows which license files must travel with that build.

Qt (bundled on Linux and macOS; Windows mechanism unconfirmed)

Not present as source in this repository – Qt is consumed as official prebuilt binaries (Core, Gui, Widgets, PrintSupport, SerialPort, Network, Xml, Concurrent, OpenGL, Bluetooth per CMakeLists.txt’s find_package(Qt6 ...)/target_link_libraries), but those binaries ARE physically copied into the distributed package, not just dynamically linked against whatever Qt the target system happens to have installed. This corrects the earlier draft of this file, which incorrectly described Qt as an unbundled runtime dependency.
Linux (.deb): CMakeLists.txt’s install-rules section privately bundles the Qt 6.11 build pinned by the release CMake preset (/opt/Qt, not the distro’s Qt) via qt6_generate_deploy_script() / qt_deploy_runtime_dependencies(), copying libQt6*.so.* and the Qt plugins actually needed into ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}/antscopez/ inside the package, with $ORIGIN-relative RPATHs so the installed binary loads those copies instead of any system Qt. See the “Known issues” bundling rationale referenced in that section (system Qt 6.4.2 exhibited real connect/repaint bugs not present under 6.11).
macOS: build.sh runs macdeployqt "$APP" -dmg, which copies the Qt frameworks into AntScopeZ.app/Contents/Frameworks before producing the .dmg.
Windows: no windeployqt (or equivalent) step was found in CMakeLists.txt or any script in this repo as of this review – confirm separately how/whether Qt DLLs are bundled into the Windows build before treating this section as complete for that platform.
License: verified directly against each bundled module’s own doc page for Qt 6.11 (doc.qt.io/qt-6/qt{core,gui,widgets,network,xml,concurrent, opengl,printsupport,serialport,bluetooth}-index.html) rather than assumed – every one of them is dual-licensed LGPLv3 or GPLv2 (plus a commercial option, not relevant here). This is not the same pairing as QCustomPlot/HIDAPI above (GPLv3-or-later) – notably, GPLv2-only is not compatible with a GPLv3(-or-later) combined work, so AntScopeZ elects the LGPLv3 branch of Qt’s license, not GPLv2. LGPLv3 explicitly permits relicensing into a GPLv3-or-later combined work (LGPLv3 section 4); GPLv2-only does not carry an “or later” clause that would make it compatible. See licenses/Qt/README.md for the full reasoning.
License files added to the repo: licenses/Qt/LGPL-3.0.txt and licenses/Qt/GPL-3.0.txt (LGPLv3 incorporates GPLv3 by reference, so both are needed together), fetched verbatim from gnu.org – see licenses/Qt/README.md.
Now wired into the actual packaged output: CMakeLists.txt’s “License / attribution files” install-rules section installs COPYING, LICENSE.txt, THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md, and the whole licenses/ directory (preserving its AntScope2/FTDI/Qt structure) into share/antscopez/ on Linux, bin/ on Windows, and AntScopeZ.app/Contents/Resources/ on macOS. Verified end-to-end on Linux: rebuilt via the release preset, packaged with cpack, and confirmed via dpkg-deb -c that all of the above lands correctly inside the actual .deb under ./usr/share/antscopez/. The Windows and macOS branches follow the same install()/target_sources() patterns already used elsewhere in this file for other files on those platforms, but haven’t been built and inspected there – flag it if either turns out to need adjustment.

Bundled on every platform (Windows, Linux, macOS)

QCustomPlot

Files: qcustomplot.h, qcustomplot.cpp
Copyright: 2011-2015 Emanuel Eichhammer
License: GNU General Public License v3, or (at your option) any later version. See COPYING.
Notes: Compiled directly into the AntScopeZ binary on all platforms. This is the component that requires the whole application to be distributed under GPLv3. No commercial QCustomPlot license has been purchased; if one ever is, this section and the project’s overall license choice need to be revisited.

HIDAPI

Files: analyzer/usbhid/hidapi/hidapi.h, analyzer/usbhid/hidapi/linux/hid.c, analyzer/usbhid/hidapi/mac/hid.c, analyzer/usbhid/hidapi/windows/hid.c
Copyright: 2009-2010 Alan Ott, Signal 11 Software
License: Triple-licensed, at the licensee’s discretion: GPLv3, a BSD-style license, or the original HIDAPI license (see github.com/signal11/hidapi). AntScopeZ elects the GPLv3 option, to match the project’s overall license. See COPYING.
Notes: All three platform-specific hid.c files are bundled in this repository for cross-platform completeness, but only the one matching the target OS is compiled into any given build (Linux build compiles linux/hid.c, Windows compiles windows/hid.c, macOS compiles mac/hid.c).

Windows-only

FTDI D2XX driver package

Files: ftdi/ftd2xx.h, ftdi/amd64/ftd2xx.dll (shipped next to the executable by the build), plus the rest of the FTDI CDM driver package bundled alongside it: ftdi/amd64/ftser2k.sys, ftdi/amd64/ftdibus.sys, ftdi/amd64/ftbusui.dll, ftdi/amd64/ftserui2.dll, ftdi/amd64/ftcserco.dll, ftdi/amd64/ftlang.dll
Copyright: 2001-2011 Future Technology Devices International Limited (FTDI)
License: FTDI’s own proprietary redistribution terms, embedded in ftd2xx.h and now also extracted verbatim to licenses/FTDI/LICENSE.txt (see licenses/FTDI/README.md) for the same reason licenses/Qt/ exists – so the notice travels as its own file rather than only inline in a header. Not GPL-compatible and not part of the GPLv3 grant above. Key conditions: usable only in conjunction with FTDI-chip-based products; redistributable in any form as long as the license text is not modified; no warranty.
Why this doesn’t conflict with GPLv3: none of this is linked into the AntScopeZ binary at compile or link time. ftdiinfo.cpp loads ftd2xx.dll at runtime via QLibrary/GetProcAddress, and the driver .sys/.dll files are separate, unmodified FTDI binaries installed alongside the application. This is “mere aggregation” under GPLv3 section 5 – independent programs distributed on the same medium, not a combined work.
Why it’s needed only on Windows: Windows has no built-in driver for FTDI’s USB-serial chips, so RigExpert bundles FTDI’s redistributable driver package. Do not modify these files or their embedded license notices when redistributing.
Housekeeping note (not a licensing issue): ftdi/windows/win32/ and ftdi/windows/win64/ also contain ftd2xx.dll/ftd2xx.lib copies that are not referenced anywhere in CMakeLists.txt – only ftdi/amd64/ftd2xx.dll is actually shipped. These look like unused leftovers and are candidates for removal, independent of licensing.

Linux-only

libusb-1.0

Not bundled in this repository. Required as a system dependency (see pkg_check_modules(LIBUSB REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET libusb-1.0) in CMakeLists.txt), dynamically linked against the distribution’s libusb-1.0 package.
License: GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 (upstream project). Ordinary dynamic linking against a system package; no bundling or additional notice obligations beyond what the distro’s own libusb package already carries.

FTDI USB-serial support

Not bundled in this repository. On Linux, FTDI USB-serial chips are handled by the mainline kernel’s ftdi_sio driver (GPLv2, part of the Linux kernel itself) exposing standard /dev/ttyUSB* devices, read via Qt’s QSerialPortInfo/QSerialPort. AntScopeZ ships no FTDI code on Linux; the #ifdef Q_OS_WIN guard around the FTDI-specific logic in ftdi/ftdiinfo.cpp confirms this.

macOS-only

FTDI USB-serial support

Not bundled in this repository. ftdiinfo.cpp’s Q_OS_MAC branch also just enumerates QSerialPortInfo::availablePorts() and filters by description string; it relies on macOS’s own built-in serial driver support (or a user-installed FTDI VCP driver) rather than anything bundled here.
HIDAPI’s mac/hid.c (see above) is the only third-party component actually compiled into a macOS build.

Maintainers: if a future change swaps out any of the above (e.g., dropping QCustomPlot, buying a commercial license for it, or bundling a different FTDI package on another platform), update this file and re-evaluate whether the project’s overall GPLv3 license is still the correct choice.