You're right.
The license agreement needs to be fixed. I'll try to get it done today. We've got a
million things going on here and missed it.
View is not currently being distributed openly because I knew that its early beta
revisions would keep breaking your code. We don't want to carry legacy issues through
the beta stages. Beta 5 will be open to all.
-Carl
At 5/25/00 05:59 AM -0400, you wrote:
>PART I.
>
>REBOL is the "language of the free" yet IT is not free.
>The following are 3 incompatible statements made by
>Carl & Company.
>
>----------
>
>On the posting "Website & Direction", Carl says:
>
>Yes. This is our "first wave" business direction. It's a
>fertile ground that we think has great potential. It gives
>us the niche we need to build our business, but gives us a
>lot of dynamic range to expand into other markets as we
>succeed.
>
>Besides, it gives all us REBOL folks, both you and me, the
>ability to now live off of our favorite hobby. 8)
>
>----------
>
>http://rebol.com/technology.html says:
>
>REBOL/Core ... is provided free and with unrestricted
>distribution to encourage the adoption and use of REBOL
>applications as well as promote knowledge of the REBOL
>Language and application engine.
>
>----------
>
>REBOL TECHNOLOGIES SOFTWARE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT says:
>
>REBOL Technologies (REBOL) hereby grants you a
>non-exclusive and non-transferable license to use the
>Software and Documentation for the purpose of designing,
>developing, writing, testing and running computer software
>applications.
>
>----------
>
>What does all this mean?
>
>How do "all us REBOL folks ... now live off of our favorite
>hobby" when Core's license is "non-transferable" and why is
>the license so when Core is supposedly "provided ... with
>unrestricted distribution"?
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>PART II.
>
>I said, on 04/04/00, as "Core Distribution Question":
>
>If I write a client-side application using REBOL/Core,
>may I distribute it without requiring users to obtain
>their own copy through rebol.com?
>
>The Core agreement seems to say "no" in that part about
>non-transferability. I'm hoping I got this wrong as it
>would put a damper on the distribution of my application.
>
>"REBOL Technologies (REBOL) hereby grants you a non-
>exclusive and non-transferable license to use the Software
>and Documentation for the purpose of designing, developing,
>writing, testing and running computer software applications.
>If you do not agree with the terms herein, then do not use
>the software."
>
>Take Java for example. The runtime can be separated from
>the development environment so they have separate license
>agreements but that is not the case with REBOL since it is
>both the environment and the runtime. If the answer to my
>question really is "no" then I am disappointed both for the
>viability of my application and for that of REBOL in
>general as it will be difficult for it to overtake Java's
>level of market penetration without changing the agreement.
>
>----------
>
>The response from [EMAIL PROTECTED] was:
>
>Perfect timing. We're closely reviewing our user license
>right now and are re-considering the transferability of
>REBOL for non-commercial uses.
>
>----------
>
>Before I got the response from Dan, I sent the same message
>to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with the following added:
>
>I posted the above to the Core list but didn't get a
>response. Here'e some more about it:
>
>I just basically want to put up "myapplication.r" along
>with "rebol.exe" (Core) on a website and allow people to
>download them. I'm willing to keep track of unique
>downloads (possibly in the form of the email-attachment
>method used by View) so that I can report the number of
>users to REBOL Technologies for the purpose of you
>knowing how much Core is out there.
>
>Please let me know if I can do this and if not, then why.
>
>----------
>
>The response I got was:
>
>According to the current license agreement, you are not
>allowed to redistribute the REBOL interpreter without
>a prior agreement with our Business Development department.
>
>There are a number of such agreements which have been
>issued. To request such an agreement, please contact
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>The Business Development department is considering the
>possibility of relaxing the license agreement, but there
>has been no determination to do so as of this date.
>
>----------
>
>Is "closely reviewing" still going on a month a half later
>or has the old license not been updated on the site?
>
>I want to write an application which I can distribute, along
>with the "runtime", so that users aren't put off by going
>through the process of getting it from REBOL's site as that
>is very developer-oriented.
>
>Even if I ask users to go to that site and get it for
>themselves before they can run my application, this type
>of distribution will give REBOL a wrong indication of the
>number of "developers" as the download count will be vastly
>inflated. The questions under "2" on the download page
>don't help REBOL much because all my users would answer
>"personal/other/no/blank".
>
>Also, even if the license has changed, "non-commercial uses"
>does little to help me. I want to profit from my work and
>now, from Carl's post (above), we know that Carl wants that
>as well: "both you and me". So, how am I supposed to do
>that when my situation is such that I'm neither getting paid
>by someone to write REBOL code nor am I profiting, in an
>ancillary manner, through web-based sales supported by a
>REBOL-served application?
>
>I admit that I did not follow up on Support's invitation to
>"request such an agreement" because I was feeling
>disillusioned, which made it easier to assume that it would
>cost more money than I could afford since other customers
>were most likely big companies who could pay large fees
>to imbed REBOL into their products, but I certainly wouldn't
>be averse to sharing my profits with the company who made
>my application possible.
>
>When I first found REBOL, my mind lit up with the promise
>of a great future for the wide-spread application of various
>software ideas I have. However, I was put off by the public
>unavailability of View. Then, after restructuring my ideas
>to work around that, by temporarily using Core along with
>some other software for graphical I/O, I was put off (again)
>by this arcane distribution limitation. I stopped all my
>work in REBOL and resigned from the Core list but kept
>checking it on rebol.org for updates to see what was going
>on.
>
>Today, I saw the posting about the relaunch of the REBOL
>site and got excited about some of what was being said,
>especially the part about View being released in June, but
>was disappointed to find the Core license to be the same.
>Will this not change for Core? Will the same limitations
>apply to View? Will View really be as "free" as Core is now
>and will they both get to be as free as I need them to be?
>
>REBOL has a revamped site, June releases of both View and
>the Core book and the number of downloads has gone from
>100,000 to 250,000. Isn't it time to bring the license up
>to date?
>
>I see the REBOL site relaunch coinciding with my birthday as
>a sign of good things to come in my future with REBOL.
>Carl, is my optimism misplaced?
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>PART III.
>
>The following was posted anonymously (read: not by me) to
>Slashdot.
>
>It was near the end of a long conversation about REBOL
>which, in usual Usenet-type fashion, degenerated into
>several tangents which had little to do with REBOL but
>which nonetheless serve up some important points from
>the past and the present. It's a succinct, yet scathing,
>attack on (or defense against) people who use less-than-
>rebellious technologies and who can't be open-minded
>enough to change.
>
>I reformatted this to fit better here but have not edited
>any of the wording. I'm including it due to the historical
>perspective it gives and as an example of the kind of post
>which could occur in the future, about REBOL (instead of
>Wintel), if the Core/View licenses aren't changed to reflect
>what REBOL actually seems to be accomplishing: it's promise
>of rebellion.
>
>----------
>
>An informal Slashdot Quiz we don't want to hear about ***
>
>Questions:
>
>1. How many posters worked with actual AREXX (not REXX crap
> but real *AREXX* on an *Amiga*)?
>
> Only one, a mere pittance. Another sounded like they had
> some experience, but I can tell you, REXX and AREXX are
> two different beasts.
>
>2. How many posters think that Amigans should not be using
> Linux; that Linux is "too elite"?
>
> Apparently too many. You folks seemed to have forgotten
> that there are ALOT of defectors from the Amiga camp that
> left because, for once, you could get a PC that didn't
> come with Winblows. I'm one of them, and I can say with
> certainty that if Linux had not offered what it did, I
> would have NEVER switched.
>
> For God's sake man, who the hell wants SEGMENTED 32-bit
> MEMORY? Multipliers that occur in only ONE specific
> regsiter, and additions in another? Only four primary
> CPU registers? 36 bit flat address space - now there's a
> standard that only Real Men Use(tm). Parity bits - hell,
> let's include some tools from the stone age as well. Oh,
> and there's my favorite, segmented MEMORY POINTERS from
> hell in MicroSquish C, despite the known assumption that
> C pointers are for a FLAT ADDRESS SPACE. (don't even try
> to double-guess that last one... you can't tell me that
> pointer arithmetic was meant for a segmented arch.)
>
> Who dropped the ball on that one? Forget that last
> question - it should be, "Who dropped acid at Intel while
> designing such a lame chip family as the x86?" I guess
> that's why people paid $1500 for a computer for years and
> years...must be all of that wonderful stuff that you get
> in the box.
>
> And people wondered why the Amiga hung around for so
> long...get a clue...because it was USABLE. Because it was
> PROGRAMMABLE. And because it didn't consist of a 8088,
> 64k memory, tape-drive-with-5 1/4"-floppy piece of crap
> in 1985. The Amiga 1000 (incidentally released in 1985),
> considered long obsolete, beat the crap out of PCs, Macs,
> etc. out of the BOX. Ever wonder why the Mac "got color"
> real fast? Why the PC soundcard market "magically
> appeared" overnight? Why Intel did everything in their
> power to kill the m68k line of chips? (answer to that
> last question: the 68060, the last chip in the family
> ever made before Mot pulled the plug, beats the crap out
> of a pentium at the same clock speed. Gee whiz, I guess
> having 16x 32-bit generic registers makes a difference...
> oops, that must be a RISC chip I'm talking about...naw,
> it couldn't be, after all, we know that RISC was a
> completely new concept...it must be a rumor that 68k
> chips had this feature A LONG TIME before RISC showed up).
>
> The one salvation of the x86 arch. is Linux.
>
> Win95 is plain stupid, with it's "API flavor of the month"
> approach and "wonderful Industry backing" (oops, I mean
> wholesale company buyouts, legal pandering, strong-arm
> OEM license tactics, astroturf campaigns, lame EULA
> agreements, big-brother-GUIDs, vendor lock-in, young-
> programmers-with-no-life-and-burnout, and quasi-sometimes
> -it-works memory protection)...I think I'll reach for a
> vomit bucket...
>
>3. How many posters have CS Degrees?
>
> Who knows? Who cares? Apparently you ALL have degrees,
> but if that's the case, then what the hell are you doing
> here, instead of making money before you loose your job
> at 40 because of the rampant age discrimination in the
> industry?
>
>4. How many posters feel that only people with CS Degrees
> should have the right to make programs?
>
> Too many, but that's OK, we understand your need for job
> security. After all, programmers and analysts should be
> exempt from the kinds of problems you find in every other
> industry...they're so special, aren't they?
>
>5. How many posters missed the boat entirely?
>
> Almost all. This is a MESSAGING language, i.e. it should
> replace AREXX for a reason. If you feel that messaging
> should only be done with shared memory, semaphores, high-
> speed switched networks, and lots of C code, then GO
> SOMEWHERE ELSE AND FORGET YOU READ ALL OF THIS. I don't
> have several lifetimes to live to write crappily-written
> C code that looks like my computer puked, just so that I
> can get program A to send commands to program B and have
> program B provide feedback to program A...while doing
> REAL WORK.
>
>6. How many posters have their head up their ass?
>
> It's too difficult to determine without pulling several
> heads out of several asses. That's OK, you can't see me
> this way as I sneak up on your job and take it.
>
>* * *
>
>A real disappointment, folks. If you can't see the value of
>a SCRIPTING language that allows you to simul-multi-fucking-
>taneously controll SEVERAL programs, and allow SEVERAL
>programs to interact that have completely different designs
>and uses, then I guess you don't have a use for shell
>scripts, either...or perl. Come to think of it, why bother
>learning anything new? We should just stick with the
>wonderful set of tools that we already have. I guess that's
>why x86 still sells strong, but can't even match the
>processing power of a Sony Playstation 2 (that's right
>folks, your average 400Mhz/Voodoo/128Mb RAM PC can't hold a
>candle to a $299 game console - tells you something about
>the words PCs SUCK WIND OUT OF THE BOX).
>
>This is just about the last straw. Slashdot used to be an
>interesting place to hear the news. Now it's just a clique
>of "3l33t3 P33C33 d00z with 4ttit00dz".
>
>Moral of this mindless rant: Before you piss on something,
>check out what you're pissing on. It might just be a live
>wire...
>
>Typical Programmer's Response: "Oh, it's a potential
>threat, let's bury our heads in the sand! Hey, what's
>that I feel up my ass, and why does the sand stink?"
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>That's it!
>Lorraine Magnus
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