MC 2.7 building standalone

[Wilhelm Sanke]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2006, J. Landman Gay wrote (on the Metacard list):

> >> The licensing agreement for 2.7 has now changed, and custom Players
> >> are no longer allowed. :(
> >
> >
> > Really?
> > If we are forced to use the DC Player instead, this is more than
> > ridiculous!
>
>
> To their credit, the RR team knows that the DC Player has its problems 
> and plans to rewrite it to be a bit more friendly and useful. For one 
> thing, they have assured me they will include all the various 
> libraries so that all stacks will work. :)
>
> --
> Jacqueline Landman Gay  


Kevin Miller has commented on this today in so many words on the 
improvement list of which I allow me to quote a small part for the 
benefit of our discussion:

> Just to comment on this thread from the MetaCard list...
>
> >>  The updated Player for 2.7 stacks was compiled succesfully and works.
> >>> I will add it to my website.
> >
> > The licensing agreement for 2.7 has now changed, and custom Players are
> > no longer allowed. :(
>
> Nothing has changed.
>
> Generic players for Dreamcard have never been allowed (please see 
> section 4
> c & d of the 2.6 license where it clearly specifies the conditions under
> which you are allowed to distribute created works).  We have turned a 
> blind
> eye to this in 2.6 because our player had a number of known issues 
> which we
> didn't have the time to correct.
>
> In 2.7, we have clarified the language for this a little in the agreement.
> We will shortly be shipping a vastly improved Player
> (snip)
> However in both cases, being able to shut off
> the Revolution branding (e.g. splash screen, or anything else we may 
> wish to
> display) is something you need to upgrade to Studio (and build a 
> standalone)
> to do.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Kevin



Am I right if I construe what Kevin says to mean that everybody holding 
a Studio or Enterprise license is entitled to produce a Player stack to 
launch rev- or mc-files?-

We are encouraged and advised (there are many instances of such 
recommendations in the list discussions) to use splash-stacks as 
standalones to launch one or a number of stacks. Such a constellation 
has at least a twofold benefit:

- the whole unit of splash and work stacks is far less in size than when 
you would produce standalones for each single work stack.
- using a splash stack + a work stack makes it possible to save changes 
to the work stack (which is important in many cases).

Customized players/splash stacks would also have the advantage that they 
can be perfectly tuned to the requirements of the work stacks, meaning 
including only such components/libraries/icons/dlls that are really 
needed in a specific situation. A generic Player would never be able to 
achieve such a directed functionality.

In the case of my website, I offer a Player to provide the possibility 
for visitors to have a look at sample stacks, e.g. at those that are not 
standalones, which they can view anyway. This is also a good way to 
reduce the volume of the website.

Seen from the marketing angle for RunRev, the possibility to view and 
test stacks for interested individuals who do not yet use one of the two 
IDEs could be a starting point for at least some of them to eventually 
join the community of Revolution and Metacard users.

Kind regards,

Wilhelm Sanke
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia>