Hi all, I'm not saying anything here as personal opinion - I am playing devil's advocate for the sake of creating a little controversy, which will hopefully result in some discussion. At the moment there is too much agreement. :o)
Ok... Deep breath... The decision to have two official sellers of SMSQ/E is flawed. It prevents growth to not have a clear way for additional people to become resellers. If there isn't a way for people to become resellers, it's also probably illegal. There should at least be a procedure for one person in each country/territory to apply and be accepted as an official reseller. The decision to not allow any charging for sources is being rationalised by you folks as a good thing (taxes, etc). It forces the sources to be distributed by some free means only, ie the internet, and prevents it being distributed by PB/shareware libraries unless they make special arrangements. These arrangements more than double the length of time it would take a recipient to get a copy of the sources. The decision to not allow distribution of binaries is very restrictive to the point of being obstructive. I would propose the refinement to the license, stating object code/binaries cannot be distributed to the general public, and may only be shared at no cost for the purposes of beta testing, or for producing custom versions for specific hardware. It would otherwise restrict development and, combined with the clause mentioned above, testing, of the code. If only the official tree can be sold, how does a hardware manufacturer who produces a custom version of SMSQ/E for XXX hardware include it in ROM? He can offer to make payment of a license fee, but under this license, it doesn't matter, it can't be distributed in binary form, or for a fee. This removes any incentive for a developer to actually adapt SMSQ to specific hardware, forcing us to stay with the hardware we already have. I hope the four points above are lucid and explain the difficulties they cause. Looking for some more lively discussion. </devil's advocate> Dave