Rev Licensing - IDEs/GUIs/twiddly toolbars ???

[Richard Gaskin]

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 
kevin at runrev.com

> 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
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com