From: Sonya Roberts To: ml@qoole.com Reply-To: ml@qoole.com Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 10:00:17 -0400 Subject: Re: Qoole CD. Whats this restrictive license agreement??? Paul Medlock wrote: > The distinction is whether a > program is used as a tool or whether it is shipped with the user's > product. These are considered two very distinct situations. In this > case, Qoole is clearly *not* shipped with the product. Therefore, it is > a tool in this case. It can be only one or the the other. And, as a > tool, it is *exactly* like my compilers and word processors that I use > to develop my product. I do not ship those tools with the product. I use > only one copy, which I bought legitimately as a single copy. Ah, but that too is not necessary a valid analogy. Many programs today offer free or cost-reduced versions of their product for personal, educational, or other non-commercial use, but require some form of acknowledgement, different licensing, or higher fees for commercial use. For example, as a student I could have purchased 3DS Max (a "tool") at a substantially lower price than the commercial version. But if I then used that tool for commercial purposes, I would be violating their licensing agreement. As a student, I can download and use Netscape Navigator, another tool, for free. But if I continue using it after school, for the commercial purpose of web site development, I must pay Netscape for the commercial version of the license. In a similar vein, there are numerous shareware or freeware fonts I can download off the net and use at no cost for personal purposes (my web site, letters to my friends, cool font effects in my artworks, etc.), but as soon as I want to use these for commercial use, again, I must pay some kind of fee - and these vary all over the map, depending on the inclinations of the person who created the font in the first place, ranging from direct payment of a fee to them, to a small donation to the charity or institution of their choice. Differing license agreements for personal and commercial use are a matter of course into todays computer business. Face it - if you're going to use someone's product to make money for yourself, most if not all of these developer'swill require you to pay more then they require from other users of the exact same product. Given that the majority of Qoole's potential market is in the "personal use and students" range of the economy, it's not terribly surprising that their general release is the "cheapie" version of their product. And, as pointed out, there is no mention in the license agreement of what if any fees they will ask for. If, after contacting them and hearing what if any terms they demand, you feel it's still unfair, then you're welcome to switch to another editor. But, as someone else pointed out, many of them have the exact same clause in their agreements. You could of course try writing your own - but as pointed out, it's taken Matt and Paul 8+ months to make their product the fine thing it is. That "commercial license" you're scorning is likely one of the ways in which Matt and Paul are hoping to begin recouping their development costs so that all of use rabid fans of their product will see Hexen2 and Quake2 support, more features, an eventual Version 3.0, and even (dare we hope for it?) NetQoole! Sorry, but complaining about a common licensing practise is not going to get you anywhere. -- Sonya Roberts ________^ ^ ^ ^________ ^ ^________ ________/(((((((=O!O= =O.O=)))))))\_____=OYO= \________ *---------\_)___(__)/) C\C_)____C_/------C\C_)____C_/---------* MS. BARROW'S CONSENSUAL REALITY http://webhome.idirect.com/~sonyar SONYA'S PAGE OF POV STUFF http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1022 CONTAMINATED LEVELS http://www.trailerpark.com/siesta/sonyar/index.htm