>I am trying to focus the groups attention on the partnership agreement first.
>Any contract made between the partnership and metaCard presupposes a
>partnership agreement. I.e. I'm trying to put the cart (a partnership
>agreement) before two horses (contract with metaCard and contract -i.e.
>licence- to end users).
Eric,
keep MC out of it. OpenCard has nothing to do with MetaCard. We don't get
any source code from MC corp. We develop OpenCard completely on our own.
The only part MetaCard plays is that they offer copies of the MetaCard
application, which we can use to create a new editing environment (button
info windows etc.). This editor will be a MetaCard stack, and MetaCard want
it to be FreeWare or PD or whatever so they can ship a copy with MC to give
it a different, hopefully more intuitive User Interface.
As a side effect, since MC is so similar to HyperCard, we will later be
able to port that editor (MetaCard-)stack to OpenCard pretty easily, and
thus the OpenCard application can be developed simultaneously with the
editing windows (aka the User Interface). It would speed up OpenCard's
development.
The "MetaCard engine" is just a fancy name for the MetaCard application,
i.e. the program. We get no source code, nothing.
>suffice for the needs of beta testers (its full color and allows standalone
>construction, though I do not know what the field or script limits are).
It's in the help. I think the script editor is limited to 64k, but text
fields may contain around a billion characters, I think.
>possible...) I expect MC would let us use, but not distribute, source code.
They will let us do neither. We may only use the MetaCard application and
make away with a copy of the stack we developed.
>I am also happy to help with graphic representation of the MC interface (I
>work at an art school so might even foist some of it off to students - if MC
>is looking for interns, please let me know).
This is exactly what the collaboration with MC is all about: Improving
their UI while prototyping ours. We develop something like SuperCard's
"Tangerine", and during that time we get OpenCard finished (this is an
ideal picture, I guess OC will take longer than the editor), and then we
convert the MetaCard stack into an OpenCard stack.
>Oh, I am still wondering why MC does not negotiate with Apple regarding HC
>III? As we can see with QuickTime, apple has (finally) adopted an agressive
>software development strategy, supporting cross platforms.
MC already have a finished product that's even cross-platform, what'd they
need HyperCard for? MetaCard targets a completely different audience than
HyperCard or OpenCard, there's no reason for them to talk to Apple.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
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