I've glanced over the comments made by others on the SMSQ/E official statement and have decided to take a nice long look at the statement myself. The comments below are strictly my opinion, not based on any input from the other commentors.
At 02:50 PM 5/13/2002 +0200, you wrote: >Official statement >================== > >3/ No distribution of SMSQ/E may be SOLD, except >for the official distribution. This interdiction >includes that of including and distributing >SMSQ/E in Public domain libraries. > >Official distributions will be sold in compiled >(binary) form, possibly together with the >official distribution as source code. For such >sales, for the time being, two >distributors/resellers, namely Jochen MERZ (JMS) >and Roy WOOD (QBRANCH) have been appointed by >the copyright holder. Resellers provide support >for the versions sold by them. Except by prior >agreement, binary, i.e. compiled, versions of >SMSQ/E may not be distributed other than through >the distributors. It would be better to leave out stating who the official distributors are in this Official Statement, and put it in a separate document. It would be kind of like putting in the name of the Officers in a set of By-Laws, as the names will change over time, and the By-Laws probably will not. >4/ The registrar, i.e. me, will maintain >official distributions of SMSQ/E, in binary and >source code form, one for each machine on which >SMSQ/E may run. I would recommend defining the terms "Registrar" (but not as "me") and "Distributor/Reseller". Just to fully clarify who they are and what they do. >5/ Any person may make any >changes/additions/modifications/adaptions to the >source code he feels like. Any person may give >away to others the modification he thus made, >including the official distribution in source >code form only, provided this is made ENTIRELY >FOR FREE - >no charges, not even copying charges, or charges >for the media on which this is distributed, >may be levied. I understand the total avoidance of any one making money off of the source code for SMSQ/E, but I feel not allowing charges for media a bit strict. A simple workaround would be to send the person a blank CD or other disk and some IRC's. I am assuming that IRC's are not considered a form of currency. If your local Post Office does not know that an IRC is, then talk directly to the Post Master for that Office. There is no reason for a Postal Employee to not know their job. I spent 8.5 years as a federal employee, so I know the power of the "chain of command". >This distribution of the source code including >the changes/additions/modifications/adaptions >made by any author may not be made in electronic >form other than on a physical disk. I really don't understand not allowing distribution via anything other than sneaker-net. What would be the consequences of the Registrar, putting the Official Distribution Source Code of SMSQ/E on a web server? It could be arranged that the requester must give their name and address before getting the Source Code. As someone that is about 5,000 miles from the Registrar, mail can take an awfully long time. Plus, someone like Thierry, sitting on a French Naval ship in the Persian Gulf, mail is very slow to come. As a veteran I try to keep fellow service members in mind. >Distribution of the changes/additions may be in >binary(compiled) form, provided that the >original and/or official version of SMSQ/E, >which is copyright © T.Tebby, is not distributed >in binary form as well. With all due respect, I don't think the above is physically possible. If I make a change to the SMSQ/E scheduler, I don't think that I can compile it and distribute it without including SMSQ/E (since this is what I have changed). If I can make a change and distribute it without any original SMSQ/E code, then I'm not actually modifying SMSQ/E and don't fall under this "license". I think this statement needs to be looked at again. >1/ When a new author adds some code to make >SMSQ/E better, only the resellers (and Tony >Tebby) see some profit from it. Before I comment on this statement let me first say this: If the Emperor has no clothes, I'll be the first one to say that he does not. I hope all understand what I mean. Also, I hope no ones take offense at my asking the following question, as I am not trying to offend, but ask a question that I feel is pertinent and important. So, the above statement says that only TT and the Distributors/Resellers will see profit from SMSQ/E. A further statement says "the resellers provide support when selling the binary versions, hence they should get some money". I've spend 5 years doing technical support for a living. Most companies define traditional support as meaning that if the product has a problem (like a bug), then the company is obligated to fix the bug (most of the time), else the buyer is getting no benefit for his dollars (and the support contract may be invalidated). In the case of SMSQ/E, if there is a bug, will the resellers provide the traditional support (meaning bug fixes)? When I bought SMSQ/E with the Q40, bug fixes where done by TT and distributed to all owners of SMSQ/E. The fixes where done on TT's schedule. Any deficiencies that I pointed out to the reseller about the product was deferred by acknowledging the deficiency and stating that the odds are the issue may not be fixed by TT. In other words, the resellers were pass-through agents for a product, just as your local store is a pass-through agent for a TV or other retail product. Without stepping on too many toes, just what kind of support is the reseller supposed to do for a buyer of SMSQ/E? The way that I viewed my purchase of SMSQ/E was that the reseller was almost in the dark as much as I was on some of the utilities that came with SMSQ/E (esp. disk partitioning). If we are strict in allowing only certified resellers to distributing SMSQ/E, I want to know what bang do I get for the buck. I have found that the QL community is great in helping each other out and have received more "support" from other QLers that from a reseller. I firmly believe that QL resellers have a right to exist and I'm happy to see them there (I'm glad I'm out of arms reach in case any one of them takes this the wrong way). But, if we are to only allow resellers to distribute SMSQ/E in binary form, BECAUSE they provide support, I think we really need to define what this support is. If we can define the support, great. If we can't define the support, then we are in trouble. Wolfgang, I know that you've taken a lot of flack for this license. I hope that no one has made the feedback too personal. I have looked over the license as much as one programmer would look over another programmer's code, looking for bugs and other problems. I appreciate your taking the time and effort to contribute to the QL community. Most of us have put a lot of time and effort in to the QL and it's community and we all can take some of this a bit personally. In fact, you may be feeling a bit like George Lucas when hearing feedback about Jar Jar Binks :-). And one final question, if the source code is to be released for free, what about the Reference Guide. Is it still only available commercially? Can electronic copies be distributed with the source code? I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet. Thanks, Tim Swenson
