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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Subject: Re: Motif for 386BSD
Message-ID: <1992Sep17.172332.11327@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu
Organization: Weber State University (Ogden, UT)
References: <w01ngag.hasty@netcom.com> <1992Sep17.104804.21283@sunbim.be>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 17:23:32 GMT
Lines: 51
In article <1992Sep17.104804.21283@sunbim.be> db@sunbim.be writes:
>In article hasty@netcom.com, hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:
>[...]
>>>Add to that the fact that we don't have shared libraries working quite yet,
>>>and that means OSF code is required for each Motif-linked binary -- which
>>>then also requires a license. We would all end up with OSF distribution
>>>licenses if we followed this down the path far enough, and pay $ for them.
>
>Actually, the truth is more like the opposite.
>If you don't have shared libraries, then but you have Motif on your system (and
>you've paid for that), then linking a Motif application (statically of course)
>and giving that away or selling it is NOT something OSF wants money for.
>They do want money from you if you redistribute the libraries or the window
>manager.
Sorry to disagree, but the distrubution of an application statically linked
with a Motif library binds you to the license for the sources for Motif.
The distribution of an application dynamically linked with a shared Motif
library does not, but implicitly requires the shared Motif library be
present on the system running the application (otherwise the dynamic link
fails).
In the first case, you must pay for the use of the Motif toolkit within a
program; in the second, the user must pay for it's use as a dynamically
linkable object.
It may be possible (until OSF reads this and revamps their policies) to
give away the shared libraries without charge, as well as the binaries to
the window manager and other OSF-supplied sources. "Without charge" is
the key work here, in that percentage royalties on $0 are still $0.
I don't think it's possible to give away statically linked applications
for which the developer did not pay OSF for distribution rights. The
costs of these rights are "rolled in" to the cost of ODT, among other
platforms.
Of course, the last time I had to think about getting OSF rights to
distribute was ~2.5 years back, so policies could be different now.
Terry Lambert
terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com
terry@icarus.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
--
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