Is it just me, again?

[J. Landman Gay]

On 13/04/2013, at 9:53 AM, "Cal Horner" <calhorner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems something is askew.

Think about it like this. You've written a big commercial software 
program and are selling it successfully. It brings in money. You've 
protected your intellectual property by password protecting the stacks, 
so that no one can read your code by looking at it in a text editor.

Let's say LiveCode's OSS is fully open with no restrictions. That means 
your code is exposed because it can't be protected. Your neighbor buys 
one copy of your app, learns the password algorithms from the OSS 
version of LiveCode, uses that to unlock your password, sees all your 
code, copies your work, and begins selling it as a competing product.

Not so good.

To prevent that, the OSS version contains no password algorithms. The 
public can't see how it works, and commercial software remains 
protected. But because there are no password algorithms in it, the OSS 
version can't open protected stacks. The code to do that just isn't in 
there.

That's why your plugins won't open in community LiveCode. But many 
vendors have chosen to release both open and closed versions of their 
plugins. You need to ask them if they're planning to do that.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com