??? 5/11/2002 12:23:18 ??, ?/? Dave P <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ??????: <snip on Dave's email>
After careful consideration and drawing on my own experience on "skirmishes" on Ql-Users (everybody probably remembers the huge misunderstanding between me and Richard Z. in which I grossly misunderstood him and a very bad reaction - mostly erroneous and out of context on my part- ensued), I have to say the following to conclude the matter: 1. It is indeed not very constructive to deal with matter of this nature publicly but only as a very last resort (As I don't =obviously= know all the facts behind Wolfgang's post I will not comment further) 2. What's "legal" and what's "fair use" are terms that are and will be subject to debate on this list as well as elsewhere on different platforms. My original comments were on the "letter of the law". Please note that I do not and will not agree to the SMSQ/E license as it is now (However it's my personal decision to enforce it, I see it as something like the drinking age limit in the US... it's a failed concept but it's the law...). 3. I and I believe others up until now were under the impression that according to our original "terms of purchase" we were entitled to free upgrades. That was the idea behind QPC (where the price for an update covered mainly Marcel's work... the fact that part of this work was done on SMSQ/E to bring it to up to par with QPC it's totally irrelevant to the OS itself and very relevant to what Marcel charges). 4. For D&D (as both Dave and Bill said) we cannot really say what really goes on until either D. or D. (sic!) say their side of their story (as it's only fair :-). However did anybody ever consider that this is not a CD we're talking about here but an EPROM which needs to be burned and then tested? Do they have to provide that for free too according to the SMSQ/E license? My personal opinion is that they shouldn't... it's not the same thing as copying a CD (which as we said -Dave as well as me and others when the original license was discussed-) should be allowed to be copied by PD libraries and even (why not) a very small fee charged for all their trouble, shipping etc... That hardly has ANYTHING to do with the distribution of SMSQ/E and I think that everyone would agree that the pursuit of a hobby, doesn't mean you need to blow your money away... (Some people ie. me don't have that much and the fact that we do love the platform doesn't mean we need to lose money on it... For example if I ran a PD library service (which I do in some form) and I provide SMSQ/E I should be able to charge something for the lost time and effort. Additionally, having to send my SMSQ/E version back to the registrar so my buddy that wants to check it out (even if no intention to incorporate the changes back to the original version exists) (since no CVS in the usual form exists) is hindering development than encouraging it. 5. Finally, the fact that TT did choose (IIRC again, don't shoot if I am wrong) not to make any money out of SMSQ/E any more but in that meeting you all had, decided to have him re- imbursed despite his original intentions to me at least means that he wasn't interested in getting anything more out of it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's brilliantly designed and as long as it was actively developed by him I had no problem paying for it, however now I don't really see why I should? Especially since the rest of the people that do develop it do not... That's all, in VERY good faith, Phoebus
