license issues (was mystery exception)

[Geoff Canyon]

If anything I've said came across as an attack on you, that wasn't my 
intent. That said:

On Thursday, March 13, 2003, at 06:08 AM, Robert Brenstein wrote:

> Admitedly, the application of do in my project would be kinda unusual 
> and very few people may indeed need it. However, I don't think my 
> desired usage is illegitimate or endangers Rev as a product in any 
> way. Users in my case would enter code that is more like Fortran or 
> Pascal which I convert internally into (reasonably complex) Transcript 
> and execute via do. However, there is no way to have this internally 
> generated code under 10 lines since multiple repeat loops are > involved.

I'm just getting started with it, but check out LispLib:

http://wiki.macitworks.com/revdocs/lisplib

I can almost guarantee you'll be able to work within the 10 line limit. 
In fact you'll have lines left over. ;-)

> Furthermore, the starting point of this thread was that 
> MC/Revolution's license explicitely allows me to produce and 
> distribute standalones without any further royalties.
>
>    Using Revolution, you can deliver powerful, fully-featured
>    applications on all major platforms - quickly, easily, and
>    royalty-free.
>
> Unfortunately, the engine imposes the limit on the do length in those 
> -- the fact of which is not clearly stated up front. This is also 
> evidenced by a number of people admitting the surprise when they found 
> it out the hard way, although in their cases it was not a showstopper. 
> This discussion should be not as much about my shareware program 
> ruining 12-year effort but about false/misleading advertising.

"Royalty-free" means without having to pay extra. It has nothing to do 
with features or capabilities. As an example, Adobe Acrobat allows you 
to create and distribute PDFs royalty free. The person who receives 
them, using Acrobat Reader, has a dramatically limited ability to 
modify the PDF you send them. That doesn't make the claim of royalty 
free distribution false or misleading.

> Also, suggesting that users of my program get own Rev licenses is a 
> bit silly -- if my users were required to do so, why any other 
> Rev-based shareware programs should be different? Are WebMerge users 
> required to purchase Rev or MC?

Again, this is like saying that because I have a QuickTime Pro license, 
anyone I send a QuickTime movie to should be able to edit it the same 
way I can, whether they have a license or not. The suggestion above 
would solve your problem. I assume that's the reason it was made.

>
>> For the very small set of tasks that truly require "do", taking a 
>> moment to
>> break them into 10-line chunks would suffice for many of them; more 
>> complex
>> needs will require more effort, but they should anyway:
>
> Executing code in 10-line chunks is not a solution for me because of 
> (anticipated) significant degradation of performance and because of 
> repeat loops within that cod (I haven't tested but I doubt that I can 
> have begin repeat and end repeat in different do statements).

You can't have repeat and end repeat in different do statements, that's 
true. But you likely don't need to. Further, you are likely to be 
surprised by the performance. Revolution is fast, even using Do.

regards,

Geoff Canyon
gcanyon at inspiredlogic.com