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It's NOT Free.. (was) Re: Re: The future of Rebol - achieving criti

 [1/15] from: gjones05:mail:orion at: 21-May-2001 12:15


From: "Joanna Kurki"
> > > > The basics (/Core and /View) ARE free. > They are free only on personal, non profit use..
<<quoted lines omitted: 20>>
> sell my boss and clients.. > Sorry. ;-(
Hi, Joanna, If you are looking at larger scale distribution, perhaps you should contact REBOL Technologies about your plan and get a real quote. There is a chance that you may be misinterpreting the idea behind the licensing scheme. Th price of an email asking them about your specific ideas is "free"! You may be surprised. BTW, I still like your version of the pdf generation idea. --Scott Jones

 [2/15] from: belymt:saunalahti:fi at: 22-May-2001 1:03


Looks like that new license was kind a big suprise to many list readers. I'm happy I found about these new restrictions before I spend more time to learn this and trying to get it used on our system. (Although I allready ordered copy of 'Rebol for Dummies' book that I have not yet received.. Perhaps I use this language on home sometime..) At 12:15 21.5.2001 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Joanna Kurki" > > > > > The basics (/Core and /View) ARE free.
<<quoted lines omitted: 6>>
> > Rebol/core "Price: Free for non-commercial use. > > Commercial licenses are $79 per CPU."
....
> > But that pricing scheme is too high for me to > > sell my boss and clients..
<<quoted lines omitted: 5>>
>licensing scheme. Th price of an email asking them about your specific >ideas is "free"! You may be surprised.
I'm allready surprised.. but not so positively. I can't use it to help my (or other Co-workers) jobs because it will be 'commercial', I can't send small host-independent scripts to our clients cause it's commercial..
>BTW, I still like your version of the pdf generation idea. >--Scott Jones
Making it in Rebol or my current hack (with free Unix tools)? At least hack worked and it did not require any costly licenses.. (there are two pdf -writer libraries available for PHP.. but both had similar (and even more expensive) licenses.. ) Joanna PS: In case anyone wonders why I'm so cynical on this issue.. I have been mp3.com artist (making some kind of music in free time) and I have learned a lot about legalities and American company ethics in last 6 months. :-( PS2: I'm not against payments or licenses etc.. But I'm against changing the rules on the way.. I understand Rebol people needs to make money on selling Rebol but IMHO you are taking quite a big risk here...

 [3/15] from: chrismorency:videotron:ca at: 21-May-2001 21:20


Hi, This may not be the best idea for a business model, considering I haven't given a lot of thoughts and I usually don't bother myself thinking about Business model or license ;), but it would simplify a lot of things : How about a licensing model based on a percentage ? For instance, let's say that a company write a software completely developped using Rebol Technologies (ie 100%), then 10% (just an idea) from what this company receives with this software must be sent to Rebol Technologies for "further research and development" ! And the use of Rebol in the system is a third-way contract : Client/Developper/Rebol Technologies... then all three parts acknowledge the use of Rebol for this particular task. If the software's functionalities are partly written in C++ and Rebol. Let's say 25% Rebol and 75% C++, then 10% (same idea) of 25% from what this company receives with this software is sent to RT. In the case a RT-developped software is written for internal business, the company could offer a % of their income or an amount equals to what Rebol helps them achieve to help RT further research and development, this can even be an advantage since they might get taxes reduction ;) If the software developped is freeware/shareware, then RT gets only publicity and almost no $ or a very small % ;) Because AFAIK, according to the new license, if I distribute a script in Rebol, all of my eventual users would have to pay 99$ to run it under rebol/view !!! In the case of the Bank of America, I'm sure RT would be interested in getting a % instead of a fixed price ;) In this kind of system, RT becomes more of a researh and development center ... best, Chris

 [4/15] from: gschwarz:netconnect:au at: 22-May-2001 11:53


Many of us use Rebol at work, but not at the companies direction. As Carl stated "sounds like personal use to me" has the effect we can improve our personal programming abilities and give the company some exposure to Rebol. This can convert into $ for Rebol when the company say "lets use it for everyone". Regards, Greg ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Sassenrath" <[carl--rebol--com]> To: <[rebol-list--rebol--com]> Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 11:01 AM Subject: [REBOL] Re: It's NOT Free.. (was) Re: Re: The future of Rebol - achieving critical mass

 [5/15] from: chrismorency:videotron:ca at: 21-May-2001 22:06


Hi, I don't consider myself a lawman, I merely acquainted with juridic papers from my International Relations degree, but the mere fact there is a gray area left to personal judgment, and that you have to express your "personal" opinion on this means the license is not as clear as it should be. (and a per-cpu basis could become quite abusive in an future distributed x-internet structure...) are you sure you want all user out there sending you 99$ ? Seems to me like a risk to Rebol itself and all it represents ! What are RT priorities at this moment ? Make more $ or push Rebol as a future/present to a lot of developers/users ? Finally, if the license changes from month to month, RT should at least informs the developers about it ! Chris

 [6/15] from: gchiu:compkarori at: 22-May-2001 15:00


On Mon, 21 May 2001 18:01:50 -0700 Carl Sassenrath <[carl--rebol--com]> wrote:
> I get your point. That sounds like personal use to me. > > -Carl
Here's another. My brother who works for an insurance company had a need to automate the downloading of images from an image server. He wondered if it could be done with Rebol, and I responded to the challenge with a View applet. His company thought it was neat, and gave him $49 to purchase a View/Pro license which he now has, but in his own name, and not the company's. They also paid for a Rebol/command license when I thought it could do some other stuff - which it turns out didn't work out due to bugs with the ODBC interface. Do I tell him he really needs a $99 license as well to use this applet at work? And, here's another scenario. Someone writes a killer View application, and releases it as freeware. Several employees of a small company find it useful. Do they all need to pay for a commercial license? -- Graham Chiu

 [7/15] from: brett:codeconscious at: 22-May-2001 13:24


Hi Carl, Frank can answer your questions for himself. For me, I totally respect your right to be paid for your work. I also want to say you and your colleagues at RT have shown yourselves to be most thoughtful and reasonable. I think the licensing issue is unfortunately so situation dependent. The cost of a Rebol license is weighed according to the situation. As you say, a company will pay for good stuff. A systems manager presenting her case for an improved applications delivery platform for her users would aim to show an added cost of USD 99 per user machine to be low. On the other hand a developer trying to show off to management the benefits of Rebol might find the cost too high. I think the View/Runtime has a role to play (assuming the produced runtimes are free from restriction). The term commercial is so blunt. I want to produce a program for a company that allows three of it's employees to update a jobs webpage without them having to know HTML. That might imply three licences = USD 297 in fees. I'll rephrase it now. The company is actually my sister's and I'm the one who has been updating the site - for zilch - brotherly love. It is my way of contributing to her cash strapped company. The program will save my sanity though by empowering them to update the site themselves without screwing up the HTML code. I'll probably have to keep modifying the program every now and then to tweak it so in a sense it is still my responsibility. I don't feel this is commercial - feels more like a sentence :) - yet technically the benefit is to my sister's company - a commercial entity that will benefit from Rebol technology (and me) because otherwise it would be paying a design company or at least for a website editing program. You are delivering a GUI platform. /View and /Link are delivering GUI platforms (built on a network infrastructure). In this sense View competes with Flash Player and HTML Browsers. Flash player and the browsers are free. But to build the content costs more, whereas with View building the content is not as expensive. Again, maybe View/Runtime will integrate the pricing. Lastly a request I really like the way my View/Pro license key worked for View 1.1 and View 1.2. I've seen the example script that checks the id. I would really like a how-to on how I could achieve similar if I needed to with my Rebol applications. That is how I could distribute my own licensed components. Brett. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Sassenrath" <[carl--rebol--com]> To: <[rebol-list--rebol--com]> Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 9:10 AM Subject: [REBOL] Re: It's NOT Free.. (was) Re: Re: The future of Rebol - achieving critical mass

 [8/15] from: caw:cs:mu:oz:au at: 22-May-2001 3:40


> His company thought it was neat, and gave him $49 to > purchase a View/Pro license which he now has, but in his own > name, and not the company's. They also paid for a > Rebol/command license when I thought it could do some other > stuff - which it turns out didn't work out due to bugs with > the ODBC interface.
Eh? What bugs in the ODBC interface??? Where can I find out more? I will need to use the ODBC interface (that I'm using in some existing python code). chris

 [9/15] from: sterling:rebol at: 21-May-2001 20:57


Yeah, I'm interested too. What bugs? And have they been submitted to [feedback--rebol--com] so they can be fixed for the 2.0 release? :) Sterling

 [10/15] from: gchiu:compkarori at: 22-May-2001 16:32


On Mon, 21 May 2001 20:57:22 -0700 [sterling--rebol--com] wrote:
> Yeah, I'm interested too. What bugs? And have they been > submitted to > [feedback--rebol--com] so they can be fixed for the 2.0 > release? > > :) > > Sterling
Let me quote your earlier reply to me :-) On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 20:29:26 -0800 [sterling--rebol--com] wrote:
> *This message was transferred with a trial version of > CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
<<quoted lines omitted: 9>>
> me when that is... 'cuz I don't know. :( > Sterling
-- Graham Chiu

 [11/15] from: belymt:saunalahti:fi at: 22-May-2001 11:50


At 17:26 21.5.2001 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Joanna Kurki" > > Looks like that new license was kind a big suprise to many list >readers. > >Yes, you are right.
And I hate it! Sometimes it nice to be right.. This time it's not. I still belive Rebol could be useful and nice addition but this licensing nearly kills it on my eyes.. I have yet seen full power of Rebol in action so I have not this enthusiasm to it.. I was hoping Rebol/View to be distributed to some windows/linux-X PC:s (just guesses. 20 machines, and five of them in house rest on clients) as a platform for scripts to communicate with our ethernet-connected sbc's (like our lon-gateway.. accessing lon data via ethernet using UDP.. Our systems allow remote configuration and OS-/application updates). But 20 lisences.. with that price I could purchase both Delphi6 and Kylix (= Linux equvalent), make single source tree and distribute executables freely .. (no, I don't really like Pascal-- but what else there are? Java.. nah..) It's not only the money.. It's hassle.. I'm not sure how this licensing is supposed to handle.. Do I haveto take care of it (and sell those scripts over 100usd per seat to cover lisensing fees) or am I just going to give our clients link to www.rebol.com along with my scripts?
> > PS2: I'm not against payments or licenses etc.. But I'm against >changing
<<quoted lines omitted: 5>>
>brining this issue to light, as I believe there are many surprised list >members at this junture.
I just hope this is not coming to be similar farce than on mp3.com.. They have been running out of money lately and therefore they must screw up their users to protect inverstors profits. In last 4 months they have invented new rules on monthly basis.. Each time finding a new way to get more money from artists wishing to give their music away freely. Joanna

 [12/15] from: sqlab:gmx at: 22-May-2001 10:54


> No, it's been around for a while. We just decided to stress it more. >
I am really glad, that all my scripts, doing real work at the border between private and commercial border are still running with older license versions of Rebol. And they run since around two years day and night. Therefore I do not have to stress my brain, if I crossed the border of the new license model.
> Why is this a bad idea? Please explain. > > Did you pay for your computer and monitor for your business? > Why not pay for software used for your business? > > Why must software be free of charge? >
It must not be free, but I remember the statements, that Rebol/Core is free and will always bee. I even remember the statement, that Rebol will be released Open Source one day, but not now.
> I am open to discussing the licensing model. > > I am not open to the Bank of America using our software for free. > > -Carl >
I do not mind, paying a decent fee, but I want to know it before I start and I want a clear definition. Then I can compare it better with other alternatives. I was thinking about wrapping a few of my tools inside /View and giving to members of my group. But in the light of the discussion about the new license policy, I wil think about that again. AR

 [13/15] from: chris:starforge:demon at: 22-May-2001 11:03


Graham Chiu wrote:
> Someone writes a killer View application, and releases it as > freeware. Several employees of a small company find it > useful. Do they all need to pay for a commercial license?
And here's another, one that has actually happened: Someone writes a powerful and comprehensive REBOL based bug report and tracking tool called ROACH. The system is so easy to use that some of his friends ask for copies to maintain bug databases for game mods. This is obviously free, but it's not personal... grey area 1. The writer of this script package works as a research associate at a UK university, where he writes, maintains and teaches C, Java and several other distance learning courses. To keep track of the bugs in the packages he can either scribble down the emails from course members in his logbook, or he can bring in the software he wrote at home and install it on the server he maintains at work. This could be seen as personal, because said developer is just using it to make his life easier, but the courses are commercial. The developer is now faced with the prospect of trying to persuade his boss that paying a license fee for a package that is not needed, and only runs a piece of third party software that was installed just to make one person'd life easier, is necessary.. or he can just leave it on his personal server and set up a project there... grey areas abound... Chris

 [14/15] from: gjones05:mail:orion at: 22-May-2001 7:21


From: "Brett Handley"
<snip> > I want to produce a program for a
<<quoted lines omitted: 23>>
> company or at least for a website editing > program.
Ditto, I'm in exactly the same boat, except it's my wife's website, and to some extent, auction management. My wife was recently showing a friend how "easy" it is to run auctions and website with my scripts (written in VB Script, PHP, Tcl, REBOL and even MS-DOS Batch). I thought about consolidating everything into two programs all written in REBOL. Without an inexpensive runtime the project is dead in the water, because even if I charged nothing for my scripts, the commercial license for the REBOL interpreter would cost more than any competing auction management software. Maybe its time to go back to Tcl and, my nemesis, Tk after all. :-(
> Again, maybe View/Runtime will integrate the pricing.
Yes, this may be the answer after all is said and done. I'm like Brett in that I don't mind any person or company charging for their "works of art." As I stated months ago, I'm a little sensitive about spending valuable time learning a language thinking that it can be distributed under one model, and then to find out that that is not the case. I've expressed concerns all along that REBOL Technologies is going to need to make some money so that they can pay their electricity bills! Go for it! But please develop a pricing model that fits your business plan and ethos regarding works of art. Present it in a clear and explicit fashion and let me decide if my projects will fit in that model. Like, Joel Neely, I love REBOL. I'm not bashing anything here. I genuinely want it to suceed, meaning the language becomes more widely recognized and that the REBOL Tech coffers go into positive cash flow. I may want all that, but I may still find that REBOL itself is not the right environment for my little mini projects I do for family and friends to assist their personal and business computing needs because of its licensing scheme. My longer term vision is to develop a specialized dialect that could be used within much larger projects. In this scenario, almost any reasonable licensing scheme would represent a negligible part of the overall project. However, that is in the future and is not the scenario that is currently bugging me. (stage directions: Scott slowly steps off soap box, wondering if any of the above made any sense. Exit stage left.) --Scott Jones

 [15/15] from: fsievert:uos at: 22-May-2001 14:06


> No, it's been around for a while. We just decided to stress it more.
My 2.5. version has the old license, i think.
> Why is this a bad idea? Please explain.
Hi Carl! You are asking for reasons, why it is a bad idea not to have a completly free REBOL. This depends on the view point, of course. I hacked together a small text, sorry for bad english and for some strange sentences, but I didn't have much time for it. What is the target market of /Core? ----------------------------------- /Core is not good for complete applications. They need windows and a beautiful UI. /Core is used as a tool- and cgi-scripting-language. This marked is dominated by free languages like PERL. You will find a PERL library for nearly all your problems. And you will find a lot of people who can write perl-code and who can work with the code later. A. Why a commecial individual might buy REBOL --------------------------------------------- Not every commercial user is "Bank of America" or has something in common with it. Someone needs a sollution for problem xy. He heard, that REBOL/Core could be good for this problem. But, of course, no one can write REBOL code. So they wourld have to learn. And after writing the tool (or cgi-script) there is always someone needed, who can write rebol code, to remove bugs, add more features, etc. So there are big obstructions. Would they give it a try if they have to pay for REBOL, just to write a small tool with it? I don't think so. But they might try, if they can use it for free like the other languages. Then, later, they want other killer features. They want their script to [produce an image | use shell access | use external librarys]. Now you've got a good chance that they will pay for your tool. B. Why does someone learn to write REBOL scripts ------------------------------------------------ There is one thing you (RT) really needs to sell something: Programmers You need people, who can write REBOL Code and bring their firms to use REBOL. But will someone start learning a scripting language with a non-commercial restriction? What does he want to use it for? He will have a commecial idea in his mind. But he will not start learning REBOL if he is not free to use it then. He will not see the advantages of your products. He will go to the webside, read "For commercial usage: 79$ per CPU". Not sure, if he will download it, while PERL is free. He will use PERL. But there is one reason, why he already could have learned REBOL: You changed license only a short time ago. So he has already invested some time in developing tools with /Core. Not very credibly, is it? Conclusion ---------- Do you think, REBOL has already enough users? If not, you should try to find more users to use it, not less. You should try to find as many programmers, as you can. When they know REBOL very good, they will accept to pay for enhancements and additions. The people out there are working in new markets, which often bind together private and commercial living. Their job is there hobby, too. So when they look at a new language, they will always ask "what does this give me for my job", too. They don't want to write a program to control the television set at home, but a guest-book with image-support, a database2HTML creator, an http-uploader or something like that. Even if they want it "for personal use" first, they will choose the best language to use it (maybe) later for commercial use. Your product is REBOL, not REBOL/Core. You can sell so many things: Developer support, Plugins (Components), Special features for one customer, books etc. But first you need people, who might want to buy all these things. And these persons are not fully non-commercial. These persons are people, who want to solve a problem (at first a small one, i think). I don't think, they will choose REBOL, if they have to pay for /Core (which looks much like free PERL at first). Note: You would not be able to sell a commecial PERL implementation, which has clean syntax. But you will be able to sell a PERL extension, which can do things, that can't be done with PERL alone. When a investor looks at REBOL/Core, he will see a scripting language (prototype: PERL). He will only see a few advatages, but nothing that can't be done with the free tools. Why must software be free of charge? ------------------------------------ It don't need to. But if you need to have programmers, you must think about how to find some. But this is something special when selling a programming language. When I buy a paint-program, I will pay once and paint many picture and sell them 1000 times. When choosing REBOL/Core to code a commercial tool, i need to pay for my commercial working first, and then everyone i want to sell my tool, has to do, too. And first I have to invest much time to learn the language. I don't even think you will sell a lot of /Core licenses, because you will be unable to test, if someone is using it. But you will discourage many people to use REBOL. So give everyone /Core, that he uses it and can see what /Command or /View or /Pro could do for him. And I think, they will buy it.

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