"Various forms of this e-mail" . . .

[Richard Gaskin]

Mathewson wrote:
> I posted this 'variant' at the behest of Dr Marielle Lange
> who felt that my previous version was a bit too 'stroppy'
> and that this variant would make it clear that I had no
> 'beef' with commercial software as such.

Must be me, as to my tired eyes they read otherwise.  In fact, I'm so 
undercaffeinated that they appear to have no other central point.  I'll 
get a cup of coffee and re-read.

> By the way: I have never had a RR licence: the firm
> (Articulate Music, based in St Andrews, Scotland) bought me
> Manuals for RR1.1; I was paid a small sum as an advance on
> my work; never received a licence (which my employer
> undertook to buy) and have never received any royalties.

Thanks for the clarification. My apologies for having misunderstood that.

> Unfortunately, I am "one stupid prawn" insofar as I
> believed, in the good, old Scots fashion, that a man's word
> is his bond, and that I would have had both a licence and
> some 'siller' for my labours. Silly Richmond!

Who gave you their word, and what did they say?

> The POINT (to 'grind on' yet again) is that I believe that
> a demo/limited/free version (call it what you will)
> stimulates various forms of activity which benefits RR in
> some ways just as much as licence money.

I agree that the old method had its own merits, but a case in which it's 
described as empowering someone to perform work without ever paying for 
it doesn't provide strong support for that argument.

> I am not an unreconstructed Stallmanite insofar as I don't
> want pie-in-the-sky all the time. After all up until RR
> 2.0.1 the restricted 'demo' was restricted - and the
> novelty of circumventing the restrictions through thousands
> of linked fields wears off pretty quickly!  I do believe in
> putting something back in the pot - I am sure that you will
> recall that for some 2 years the user-contrib. list of RR
> was packed with various contribs of mine - that was my way
> of putting back, in lieu of a licence.

I think I understand: so the problem isn't with RunRev but with the 
community you've been delivering tools for?

Perhaps those who find the tools valuable would be willing to chip in a 
couple bucks toward a license.  Have you considered a PayPal account for 
those?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  __________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more: http://www.fourthworld.com/rev