Accusations of confluence . . .

[Klaus Major]

Hi Richmond,

> Maybe I am wrong: but, reading recent posts I get a funny
> feeling that the MC IDE might be being steered in such a
> way that there is not that much difference between it and
> the RR IDE. Certainly the inclusion of components of the RR
> IDE, while not in itself being a bad thing, makes:
>
> 1. The difference between the 2 IDEs seem smaller than
> previously,

not really and not since I had a look at Rev and MC, which is
about 5 minutes ago :-)

Since MC is maintained by a couple of enthusiastic people (including me)
we surely want to make our life a bit easier and actually add some nice
and timesaving features here and there.

I am afraid you do not see it this (correct and only) way!

> and
>
> 2. Licensing issues become more byzantine: how much of the
> 'sauce' will remain open-source and how much of it will
> become proprietary - and how does one tease out the bits?
>
> While it has been pointed out that Metacard licenses are
> now

Not NOW, but since RunRev aquired the MC engine!
-> July 2003!

> only available when one buys a Runtime Revolution
> license (which, at least, in some ways, makes the idea of
> Metacard as an 'alternative' to RR seem a bit redundant)

MC is just an alternative IDE to the wonderful ENGINE, please don't
mix terms here ;-)

And noone is forced to use MC, you still have the choice!

But there MUST be something about MC, since a LOT of very
nice people still prefer it to Rev, although they could use Rev,
of course ;-)

> it is perfectly possible to use Metacard, with a 10-line
> script limit, without a licence

Again this is ONLY possible (LEGAL!?) with the last MetaCard
version from the MetaCard Corp.

And I am not sure about that either.

> (Oh, No, here we go again)
> - how long will that continue to be possible, if, like the
> 'Bionic Man' an increasing number of its constituent
> components are 'borrowed' from RR?

Since everything came after the above mentioned date, this
only applies to holders of a pro license of Revolution and are "idle"
thoughts in my opinion.

>> From my point of view - the present version of Metacard is
> not as feature-rich as RR, but is ideal as a tool to
> introduce would-be xTalkers to the language (especially
> since my present spat with Mr Rogowski of Apple - re
> yupercard availability - is getting pretty purple).

Sure, but these days are gone, sorry to bring the bad news
but you have to face the truth and try to live with it.

Hint:
I am not a lawyer, so this is just my naive way of seeing the whole  
thing.

> sincerely, Richmond Mathewson

Regards from germany

Klaus Major
klaus at major-k.de
http://www.major-k.de