License issue

[Kevin Miller]

On 8/4/02 8:10 am, Ben Rubinstein <benr_mc at cogapp.com> wrote:

>> Here's a relavant quote from the FAQ that relartes directly to my business:
>> 
>> "I'm a shareware developer / consultant / retail software developer and I'm
>> going to ship thousands of copies. Do I need a license?"
>> 
>> "No."
>> 
>> End of issue from my perspective.
> 
> I agree that there are many classes of use to which this doesn't apply.  And
> if it was truly intended - and applied - only to covering Rev support costs
> in large companies it may well be appropriate (thought there are other ways
> to solve that particular problem).  And if that was all it was, I could also
> pass it off as having no relevance to me, because I am not in that
> situation.
> 
> However, in both the formulations we have seen so far it appears that the
> net has been cast considerably wider, and as far as I can see in the current
> writing it looks a lot like it could affect me, and in very unclear ways.
> So I do rather urgently want clarification.  Kevin, please can you answer
> some questions?

The license is intended to cover the case where we provide custom support
services (e.g. on site support) or other custom options to a specific large
account.  It is something we would negotiate with them on a case by case
basis depending on their needs.

The agreement did get reworded somewhat last week - the substance was
changed a little, primarily because the complexity of some aspects of it
confused more people than we expected, and the wording was changed a lot to
make it clear for all.  However, the point of this change was primarily (and
indeed is now exclusively) to allow us to provide better support to meet the
specific needs of larger organizations.

I'd also like to say that at no stage would we apply these new terms
backwards to existing license holders, except on a voluntary basis.  Once
you purchase a new license it would be on new terms, but we certainly
wouldn't consider backwards applying some new clause to our existing user
base.  We do however give you the option to volunteer to buy new on-site
support, or the option to volunteer for a free upgrade from your Standard
Edition to the new Small Business Edition which includes updates for a year
(from date of your original purchase).

I will agree that the wording of the new license when first introduced
wasn't completely clear, and that some aspects of it did get changed
slightly (and over a period of just a day or so) before we shipped - though
primarily the changes that have taken place have been to the wording and it
still applies to the main group of people we are targeting it at.  Like any
other company, we do sometimes publish the odd new policy that doesn't go
over as well as we would like or needs reworded.  For any confusion, I
apologize again.  That said, I don't entirely understand how the thread of
"royalties" got started given that the FAQ did clearly state that we were
not charging royalties right from the start, but anyway...

Finally, this list is not really the best place to discuss this kind of
issue.  This is the "use-revolution" mailing list, not the
"improve-revolution" mailing list.  The latter list (which is about to
become available for Professional customers only), or my mail box, would be
appropriate.  I do listen to, read and consider everything that gets sent to
me, and act on as much possible.  If anyone has any further comments, then
please feel free to send them directly to me <kevin at runrev.com>.

Kind regards,

Kevin

Kevin Miller <kevin at runrev.com> <http://www.runrev.com/>
Runtime Revolution Limited - The Solution for Software Development
Tel: +44 (0) 870 747 1165.  Fax: +44 (0)1639 830 707.