Maybe I'm a bit confused by the original question, but I always viewed the ability to hide source code as a major plus for using appengine. For independent developers, who don't have access to IP lawyers, this enables them to avoid the piracy problem entirely. I think the scenario he mentioned, explicitly repackaging and reselling the appengine service itself might be a violation, but does this extend to every such case?
To be more exact, do you think it's a TOS violation to sell the deployment of an application as a "service"? You aren't transferring any rights, as the customer has full capabilities to replace your deployment with his/her own code and is the only party who deals with App Engine billing (if the issue arises). The benefit of this is that you could write the code to "expire" after a time period and therefore sell subscriptions without worrying about someone violating your license. I'm considering this for a future application, so I'd be very interested to hear more.. Thanks On May 12, 11:19 am, "Ikai L (Google)" <ika...@google.com> wrote: > I'm going to preface this with a warning that I am not a lawyer, this is > just my interpretation of the Terms of Service. > > It could be a possible violation: > > http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html > > You may be in violation of this: > > 7.3. Unless Google has given you specific written permission to do so (e.g., > through an open source software license), you may not assign (or grant a > sub-license of) your rights to use the Google App Engine Software, grant a > security interest in or over your rights to use the Google App Engine > Software, or otherwise transfer any part of your rights to use the Software. > > By providing a dashboard on top of Google App Engine, you may be, in effect, > providing a sub-license. > > <http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html>Is this scenario avoidable? > That is, it is not a violation to sell your software to another person. If > you're running Java, for instance, you can sell software in the form of JAR > files (these can be decompiled, reverse engineered, etc). Alternatively, you > can sell the software and provide the source, but license it so that it > cannot be resold - most companies buying software with source don't go into > the business of reselling it, and it gives them the flexibility of modifying > it. Both of these scenarios are allowed by the ToS. > > > > > > On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Ankur Gupta <verses...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > > Assume someone wants to sell a custom CMS software that can run on > > Google App Engine. However this person doesn't want to sell/give > > access to the source code. > > > So now if someone put up a website and put the same Free Quota as GAE > > offers and the same pricing as GAE offers. It will have it's own > > registration process where in it will ask user the required domain > > name etc. Finally the CMS will be hosted on GAE and user will be > > provided with the dashboard access. > > > There is no desire to hide that this is hosted on Google App Engine. > > > My question is > > > a) Does this violate Google's Terms and conditions ? > > b) Is it possible that once the access to the dashboard is provided > > user can download the source code ? > > > Ankur > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Google App Engine" group. > > To post to this group, send email to google-appeng...@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<google-appengine%2Bunsubscrib > > e...@googlegroups.com> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > > -- > Ikai Lan > Developer Relations, Google App Engine > Twitter:http://twitter.com/ikai > Delicious:http://delicious.com/ikailan > > ---------------- > Google App Engine links: > Blog:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com > Twitter:http://twitter.com/app_engine > Reddit:http://www.reddit.com/r/appengine > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine" group. > To post to this group, send email to google-appeng...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appeng...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
