🚀 go-pugleaf

>>> On 5 Dec 93 15:56:46, marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen) said:

Marc> In article <PCG.93Dec5204154@decb.aber.ac.uk> pcg@aber.ac.uk
Marc> (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

pcg> Ahhhh, but this is the crucial aspect of the problem: as a rule OSF
							   ^^^^^^^^^
pcg> want people to pay for copies of their _runtime_ system too, while
pcg> everybody else is content with being paid just for their
pcg> _development_ system.

Marc> Are you completely clueless?  From Darrell Crow's recent posting:

I think _you_ are being clueless: one must pay a royalty on _all_ cases
where the runtime is distributed in DLL form (unless the target platform
is already licensed) alongside with the application, which incidentally
the most convenient/common method, and in all cases but the two you
mention when the runtime is distributed to third parties statically
linked with the application.

With OSF/Motif the _rule_ is that somebody pays a royalty for runtime
binaries; there are _exceptions_ to the rule. This is what I read in
David Brooks as quoted by R. Stewart Ellis:

>>> On 19 Nov 93 17:52:42 GMT, ellis@nova.gmi.edu (R. Stewart Ellis)
>>> said:

R> In response to my posting about the possible difficulties this might
R> pose for the distribution of Mosaic, I received the following from
R> David Brooks at OSF:

Brooks> First: static bound copies attract no royalty or license fee;
Brooks> what is true in general is that the target system must itself be
Brooks> licensed to run Motif.

This I (now) read as: "in general" someone must pay a royalty (not
necessarily the developer); there are exceptions, and all these
exceptions involve programs linked with static libraries only. Darrel
Crow summary of the OSF/Motif library says the same thing -- and I am
not surprised, the goal of OSF seems to get a royalty on every seat for
which OSF/Motif is installed; this is standard industry practice, but
for applications/SDKs, not for runtime libraries.

The tightening of the rules I wanted to warn people about is that in
1.1.x _all_ cases of distribution including static libraries _only_ were
exceptions; now "some/many/most/who knows how many" cases of
distribution involving static libraries require royalties too, so the
exception list is significantly smaller (fortunately it is now certain
that NCSA Mosaic binaries for most/all platforms falls within the scope
of an exception).

For 99% of other commercial libraries out there the rule is one need not
worry about exceptions to rules, as no royalty for runtimes is due
_ever_; you buy an SDK, and that's it.