Can I use Revolution for this?

[knowledgeworks]

>>
Even if this freedom means it would be trivial to put Runtime
Revolution and MetaCard Corporation out of business?  I mean, it would
take you all of 10 minutes to create your own Home stack, and post it
to public sites (for free download) and instantly eliminate almost all
sales of both products.  Which of course result in the ceassation of
all future development of either?  Seems a pretty high price to pay
for "freedom"...
<<

I realised on reflection today that it would be dangerous for MC/Rev to remove these limitations.  After all, if it means that someone can (for nothing) reproduce the full functionality (i.e. deliver a standalone that was as malleable as the IDE itself), then it might threaten the existence/development of the MC engine itself.

Frankly, I think that the basic Revolution license is just about the best value commercial software I've ever seen.  The starter kit is fantastic as "free" software (I mean, I think that most people would feel compelled to get a license - it just doesn't feel right to have something of this calibre for nothing - I can think of only a handful of  Open Source or "free" products on this scale: FreeBSD, Firebird, Zope, Python come to mind....)  Metacard is very sound.  But (for me) the additions made by Revolution (especially the ODBC access, and the enhanced IDE) are also very important.  Actually, even the idea of printed documentation is pretty important (I think I could do with buying that.)

I'm in the process of devising a business model that I anticipate being far more profitable and satisfying than working as an employee, and it includes a mixture of free and proprietary software.  Sure, it's great that some if is both powerful and costs nothing (upfront... the time to comprehend can be very costly!)  But at the end of the day, I want to make sure I am using the best combination of products.   Provided something is not astronomically priced, I'll use it.

And Revolution really hits the right spot in terms of power, price and comprehensibility.

I anticipate buying a basic license before the end of this week.  I normally spend a lot longer than that in making software purchasing decisions.  But within an hour of reading about MC I could see its potential for my business, and when I downloaded and used Revolution the final decision was made within another couple of hours.  If my business is successful, I will but the Professional license when the money is rolling in.  

Can I ask one question that I am almost in disbelief about: does the SBE of Revolution really cover the use of the IDE by 3 developers? 

My whimsical idea of using Revolution for OR mapping was just hypothetical... I'm still in the stage of thinking "just what are the limits of this technology".  On reflection, I do understand why these limits are in place.

Regards,
Bernard Devlin