Hello Rob, Wednesday, November 8, 2006, 7:49:58 PM, you wrote: RS> One of the lawsuits I was involved in ate up 8 months of my time, and RS> was over the most amazingly stupid misunderstanding... and the entire RS> case dissolved eventually when they determined I had actually never done RS> what I was accused of at all, so there was no basis.
Regardless of whether I might do the right thing in respect to the EULA and/or local rights, I can't be involved in any lawsuit because I simply have no 8 months of time left. It might be even a tactic, like sending unfounded cautions to people who prefer to pay and try to avoid a lawsuit even if they're innocent. When sent in thousands a lot of money sums up (heard about this a couple of times in Germany, but not related to MM). >> practically prohibited to contribute to the Gnash project?? I would >> accept it that I may not use (in an active manner) the tools to do any >> reverse-engineering. With other words, I cannot write test cases for >> Gnash using the Adobe tools. RS> Exactly. This has been the interpretation of the EULA for many free RS> Flash projects, I can live with that (contribute to Gnash without using the Flash IDE). However, I can't stop owning/using the program for other purposes. RS> If Adobe would speak up on this issue, it could save us time and RS> money... Agree, that would be best. Any chance to achieve that? I fear they will avoid saying anything that could restrict the use of the licence... RS> Exactly. To get screwed by doing the right thing is stupid. All we're RS> really doing in a way is making Flash more wide spread than it already RS> is by supporting platforms Adobe doesn't. They should be encouraging us. :-) When reading the *player* licence you'll notice that they absolutely forbid the use of the free player (be it under Windows or Linux) for embedded devices. That sounds to me that they see potential in the embedded market and want to make sure they get the money for the embedded version. It's intelligible as embedded devices and Flash make a great combination. My experience is that customers always judge a product in base of the visual aspect (frontend) - no matter if the backend is far inferior. What I want to make clear is that when developing a device, the frontend is one of the most important things and Flash is a real great help in this regard. I'm sure Macromedia were well aware of this. RS> It's times like this I hate the way the computer industry has gotten RS> with IP issues. More reason for projects like Gnash! My hope is that RS> with the release of Tamarin, Adobe isn't concerned about IP issues like RS> MacroMedia was. If this turns out to be true, it'll actually let more RS> people contribute to Gnash. We would have had to dealt with this issue RS> eventually, so it might as well be right now. Can you tell me more about these IP issues Macromedia was concerned about? Did they get angry with someone? RS> Just to be clear, I totally appreciate the AGG contribution you made RS> to Gnash. It's been very fun to have Gnash running on my Sharp Zaurus RS> lately. :-) (screenshot at http://www.welcomehome.org/gnash/frog1.jpg) The development of the AGG renderer was done without Macromedia tools. All SWF files did exist already before or have been created for other purposes. Udo _______________________________________________ Gnash mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash
