Rev licensing - post factum rulings ???

[J. Landman Gay]

Chipp Walters wrote:
> Jacque,
> 
> You seem to be the person who best understands this. Can you answer me 
> the questions below (as two emails to Kevin at RunRev are still awaiting 
> an answer)?

I can give you my interpretation of it, with the caveat that RR can 
override me with a more exhaustive explanation. I think the licensing 
terms are fairly simple, but of course, I am not a lawyer.

> 
> We all know that the new Rev Media app is supposed to work with 
> templated solutions. I believe one of them is a slideshow presentation. 
>  From the front page of RR's website:
> 
> "Right out of the box it includes templates for creating kiosks, 
> presentations, adventure games, portfolios and more."
> 
> So, can I legally create an application, say a presentation application, 
> which generates my own slideshow stacks, and I bundle it with a very 
> simple player so my users can run their saved slideshow stacks and the 
> whole thing is built so the user never directly enters any Transcript? 
> It would seem to me, this app I described above is in direct competiton 
> with Rev Media.

The application you are describing isn't a "generic player", so I 
believe it would be allowed. We assume in the above that you hold a 
valid Enterprise or Studio license, which gives you permission to build 
just about anything you like. You are allowed to do what you describe, 
because your "player" will only work with the specialized stacks that 
your application builds. The app you describe would by necessity contain 
handlers specific to your implementation of a slideshow. It would not be 
a generic player that anyone could use to open any old stack that does 
any old thing. So yes, you could make a slideshow application, or any 
other kind of product that opens and runs stacks that work with your 
application.

> 
> Furthermore, can I legally create a Home stack application, kinda like 
> HyperCard, where users can build very simple apps like an address book 
> or recipe database, all w/out scripting (like HC)? Each stack they save 
> can be opened and edited in my original HClike application. This is the 
> HyperStudio scenario of which I imagine Marielle may have been planning 
> on building.

I see no problem with this either. Again, your implementation of a stack 
builder is unique to your application. Your scripts -- the ones that 
manage object creation, etc. -- will not be useable as a generic 
"player" for all stacks. If you have a valid Studio or Enterprise 
license then you are allowed to build whatever you want as long as it is 
not a replacement IDE or a generic player. (An IDE replacement is one 
which you sell as a stand-alone product that does not require 
Revolution; this restriction does not include supplemental IDE stacks 
that do require the user to own a copy of Revolution.)

> 
> Now with DreamCard becoming discontinued, it appears that my 'Home stack 
> app' described above, no longer represents competition for RunRev, as 
> it's specifically targeted at those who are NOT scriptors.
> 
> So, what is RR's license policy on both of these? This whole licensing 
> issue is of great interest to me and I'm hoping to better understand the 
> boundries. I'm sorry you feel much of this is 'misconstrued', but I 
> think it's a very important subject for now and future RR developers.

I very much agree it is important and I didn't mean to belittle people's 
interest. The reason I think it was misconstrued is because, largely, I 
think people are sometimes too eager to believe the worst, even though 
RR has historically been very lenient with its license. In reality, 
Runtime only wants to protect its own software; thus, no competing IDEs, 
and no competing Player. "Player" in this sense means only those apps, 
like StackRunner, that have little function of their own except to open 
other stacks and, in particular, to run them as though they were 
standalones. Running a stack as though it were a standalone does 
conflict with Runtime's interests; Media users need to upgrade to Studio 
or Enterprise to do that.

Now we can wait for clarification from Runtime if I've gone wrong here. 
But that's how I see the license, and I don't think it is any more 
restrictive than it has ever been. In the entire history of Revolution, 
there has been only a single app produced that would cross the licensing 
terms; everything else that anyone has made is fine, and remains so now.

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