Clause in the Valentina License

[Peter Alcibiades]

Years ago at a now forgotten company a whimsical older manager was starting up 
a first class on databases.  What, he asked, is the most important thing to 
consider when inputting data into an application?

We young fellows stumbled around for a while, as you can imagine.  Finally he 
delivered himself of his accumulated wisdom, which has remained with me ever 
since.  "Never key any information into an application without knowing how 
you are going to get it out".  


If what the clause is saying is, you the developer may not use the embedded 
kit to create and sell a database engine + ide, a product in itself,  that 
competes with Valentina, that seems entirely reasonable.  It is exactly the 
problem Rev might have had if there were a cut down version of Studio, and a 
cheap or free player - effectively, you'd be letting loose a more or less 
equivalent version of the product for very little or no revenue.  No one 
could reasonably demand that you do that.   And given a choice, is the world 
better off with cheap versions, or with none (which in the end is the 
consequence of your being unable to restrict use in this way) most of us 
would say, better the cheap version with some restrictions.

But if what is being said is that once an end user has put his stuff in, you 
the developer may not use the kit to extract that data in a form which he can 
use in some other competing database, well, no thanks.  We need to get our 
priorities straight:  its his data.  Don't tell him what to do with it.

I was alerted to this by an organization who had keyed in several person-years 
work of their own intellectual property into a database with no export 
provisions.  When they wanted to get it out, the reply was, good luck writing 
your own programs, or pay us generously to do it.  Whose intellectual 
property was it?   We had no doubt, but there seemed to be some confusion in 
the mind of the application supplier.

Post sale restrictions on use, in the EU, are unrelated to copyright.  You 
cannot make derivative works, which are typically copyright violations, 
without approval of the holder.  That is quite different from post sales 
restrictions on use, which attempt to prevent you from using the purchased 
property in certain ways which are legally unobjectionable.

The reason why I cannot put images derived from the DVD on a T shirt without 
permission is copyright.  The reason why Sony cannot forbid me from using the 
player in any way I want after I've bought it, is that post sale restrictions 
on use are unenforceable in the EU.  But this does not mean I can use it to 
violate copyright.  That's an independent matter.

Take a tool - a plane or chisel for example.  A supplier cannot make two 
versions, a professional one and a DIY one, and solely by conditions on 
purchase, forbid professional carpenters from using the DIY one for purposes 
of trade.  Once people have bought things you can't tell them how to use 
them.  You can void their warranty.  You can exempt yourself from damages due 
to injury.  But you can't stop them.  I have often wondered doubtrfully 
whether, when Filemaker sells an academic version of Filemaker Advanced in 
the EU, and forbids the  buyer to sell works made with it, that would hold up 
in court if challenged by some enterprising university or charity.  It would 
perhaps be wise of both supplier and buyer not to insist on finding out.


Peter