Mathewson wrote:
1. Why does RunRev not allow individuals who wish to work
with the MC IDE only a way to purchase the RR engine at a
reduced price without the RR IDE?
This list is for the enhancement and maintenance of the MetaCard IDE by
its users.
Kevin sometimes reads this list, but the surer way to contact him is at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
2. How closely supervised/overseen/controlled is the
direction of the development of the MC IDE by RunRev?
The MetaCard IDE is a completely independent project from the MetaCard
engine acquired by RunRev Ltd., and MetaCard Corp. retains the copyright
on the MC IDE (see Help->Licensing).
At the time the engine was acquired Dr. Raney changed the license of the
MetaCard IDE stacks to be open source so they could be maintained
without question of copyright violation.
While RunRev has no control over the MC IDE stacks per se, they do own
the engine needed to run it.
And while Runtime Revolution Ltd. has no obligation to provide direct
technical support for the MC IDE, to Mark Waddingham's credit he has
gone out of his way to help efforts here in maintaining the MC DE with
newer versions of Rev.
3. If somebody else (No, I won't, before you ask) wishes to
develop an IDE that is different from both MC and RR but
still dependent upon the RR engine would they be allowed to
proceed?
This is unknown at this time.
Previous Rev Studio licenses limited deployment to a single platform,
and since no such restriction is in the MC IDE its licenses were limited
to Enterprise users only.
At some point the Studio license was reportedly changed to allow
deployment to any platform, so the historic concern over use of the MC
IDE by Studio licensees would seem no longer relevant. This may or may
not depend on when the Studio license was acquired and/or upgraded.
I've submitted a request for clarification on this to RunRev, and am
awaiting reply.
To be a true Integrated Development Environment would require scripting,
and the runtime engine prevents scripting beyond the scriptLimits, so it
would appear that any IDE would require a Rev license to run as such.
To some, anything that sells Rev licenses would seem welcome; we'll have
to wait for word from the mother ship before we discover whether RunRev
Ltd. feels the same.
Standalones, however, or anything else which doesn't require a Rev
license, are a different matter. Any standalone has tighter
restrictions which incorporate considerations of "competition", and now
that RunRev has migrated into point-and-click consumer applications
AKAIK the range of things that can be considered "competition" has not
been publicly defined.
4. Presumably it is still permissible for end-users to
develop "twiddly toolbars" and so forth - and freely
distribute them?
Please refer to the license agreement, or get clarification from RunRev Ltd.
5. Where is the line between "twiddly toolbars" and
alternative GUIs?
The definitions for these and the restrictions which might accompany
such definitions have not to my knowledge been expressed in any written
statement from RunRev Ltd.
--
Richard Gaskin
Managing Editor, revJournal
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Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com
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