Quicktime and which codec is supported

[Jeff Reynolds]

Tiemo,

read the current apple agreement very carefully, it changes over time  
and has had some restrictions on how you could distribute the player  
on your discs that were sometimes a bit buried or unclear.

some of the distribution conditions in the past that have come and  
gone and come and gone have been:

• requiring your application to only use the version (or above) of  
the qt player you licensed. so this means when your app is installed  
it forces the users to upgrade their quicktime to use your app

• requiring that if you have an installer for your application that  
it automatically fire up the quicktime installer after installing  
your app

• if you produce more discs at a later date they may force you to  
remove or replace your qt installer with a newer version at their  
desecration.

• you have to submit copies of your work to them for verification

• use logos on the packing and disc w/in their guidelines. (always  
there)

I have not looked at the license since last fall, then i think it was  
in a much more relaxed mode, but i think this changes with marketing  
directors and how aggressively they are pushing qt...

Lesson is to read it carefully and make sure you are OK with all the  
terms and can complete them with out too much pain in your production  
and testing.

The great thing about Rev is not having to use an installer and being  
able to even play from the cd w/o much problems so that helped get  
around the QT restrictions. Some clients who are publishers have not  
liked some of the restrictions and had us not put the player on the  
cd and just point folks to the qt site for downloading. these days  
with everyone wired thats not such a bad problem. certainly relieves  
you from contract signing, and (sometimes) extra work. So if you have  
a publisher or client make sure they are aware of this contract. one  
client's lawyer thought that they would need to enter into the  
agreement with apple, not me as the developer, while another insisted  
that i had do it and take any legal responsibility (same license  
agreement!), it was hilarious to get these emails about the same time  
that said exactly the opposite legal positions for the exact same  
situation (i had almost the exact same boiler plate with each client  
and very similar projects)!

we have one old cdrom that we technically are not sposta replicate  
anymore since it has an old qt software built into its installer (but  
the ed market still wants the product). problem is the source code  
for both the app and the installer are lost to a company implosion.  
the product actually works fine all the way up to xp (no one has  
tried this with vista yet) if you install the latest quicktime (or  
any version that will function on that system) then run our old app  
installer which also installs the qt v2 dlls on top of the new  
quicktime! doesn't harm qt or the system and everyone is happy.  
unfortunately we dont know what it is that the installer is putting  
in from the old qt v2 that allows the old app to work under the new  
quicktime. anyway you can see where i now try and avoid doing any qt  
installation (even though you are no longer allowed to roll your own  
installation, in the early days this was how you had to install the  
qt with your stuff).

cheers,

Jeffrey Reynolds



On Feb 19, 2007, at 1:00 PM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com  
wrote:

> Subject: Re: Quicktime and which codec is supported
> To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Message-ID: <c09.116137d0.330a7a43 at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
> Yes, Apple does require that you ask permission to distribute their  
> Quicktime
> player, even though one can normally download it for free.   It is  
> a simple
> matter to obtain permission, by filling out and mailing the  
> application that
> Apple provides.   Remember, also, that Apple requests that their  
> logo, which can
> be downloaded from Apple , be printed on the CD's label.
> Steve Goldberg
>
> In a message dated 2/18/07 1:00:44 PM,
> use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com writes: