Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!crdgw1!daredevil!vita From: vita@daredevil.crd.ge.com (Mark F. Vita) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Allegro Common Lisp licensing fees Message-ID: <2117@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 5 Sep 89 20:53:04 GMT References: <4872@merlin.usc.edu> <939@mrsvr.UUCP> <2034@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <4012@internal.Apple.COM> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP (Mark F. Vita) Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY Lines: 159 In article <4012@internal.Apple.COM> lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) writes: >In article <2034@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> vita@daredevil.crd.ge.com (Mark F. >Vita) writes: > >> Well, if the fee is so , why not just get rid of it? > >I don't think it is purely symbolic. There is some legal reasons >behind it. Ah, yes, the notoriously hyperactive Apple Legal Department rears its ugly collective head again. *Sigh*. (Q: "What do you have when you have 100 lawyers up to their necks in cement?" A: "Not enough cement.") Well, "I'm no lawyer, but"... I do have a brother who is a musician and who has dealt extensively with the Copyright Office with respect to copyrighting songs. As I recall, the key factor in preserving your copyright is the inclusion of a copyright notice on all distributed copies of the work in question, and not whether you charge any money for them. I mean, I've glanced over the guidelines a couple of times myself, and nowhere do I recall seeing anything to the effect of: "In order to retain your copyright, it will be necessary for you to gouge people to the tune of $100 per year." I mean, it's possible that I skipped over that paragraph, but I don't think so. :-) >> development products. But royalty fees on compilers are absolutely >> inexcusable. I mean, I've already paid for the product once; why > >I don't know the Lisp environment, but there are no royalties for using >MPW compilers. Once you start shipping some of Apple's code (as with >MacApp), then there are licensing fees. I would guess that shipping a >product with Macintosh Lisp results in shipping a significant amount of >Apple's code, hence the licensing fee. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but when I link a THINK C application, I include a "significant amount" of Symantec's code (libraries and so forth). Why is that Apple finds it necessary to charge money to preserve their copyright in this situation, but Symantec does not? Are there some special, secret copyright laws I don't know about that apply only to Apple? Another analogous situation: SuperCard. As I understand it, "compiled" SuperCard projects can be distributed royalty-free. I'm sure that these compiled SuperCard stacks contain a LOT of Silicon Beach's code. But SB doesn't charge royalties. What gives? Maybe your lawyers should consider switching to a decaffeinated brand. :-) >> this swell new technology, right? Wrong; instead they charge a >> $100/yr royalty fee for developing with MacApp. Why? I don't have to >> pay $100/yr to make Toolbox calls. Why should I have to pay $100/yr >> to use MacApp? > >You don't distribute the Toolbox code with your application. You do >distribute the MacApp code. True enough, but not really relevant to the point I'm trying to get at. To the developer, it's a non-issue as to whether any of Apple's code is included when they distribute an application. Developers just want to make calls to standard development libraries, and for the most part, they don't care whether the code they're calling happens to exist in ROM or on disk. It isn't the developer's fault that MacApp is not in ROM. Apple should not be forcing them to possibly choose a less optimal development environment on the basis of this distinction. Developers want something that makes developing applications for the Mac easier, faster, less error-prone. This is exactly what MacApp is for, and if Apple was smart, they'd be bending over backwards to get developers to use it. Happy developers == more quality applications for the Mac == greater perceived utility for the consumer == increased market share for Apple == increased $$$ for Apple. By "bending over backwards", I mean finding a way to let them use MacApp without imposing any additional financial burden, and not hassling people over petty issues such as whether any of "their code" is being included. Shabby licensing fees and overpriced compilers just don't cut it. Sure, $100/yr doesn't sound like a lot, but for many people (myself included), it's the Principle of the Thing. Recently I had a situation for which something like MacApp would have been a great help. I eventually decided to go with Paul DuBois' excellent (and *free*) TransSkel package instead. Not that I necessarily wanted to distribute the application commercially, but in the event that maybe I did someday, I decided that I would rather not have this legal and financial entanglement hanging over my head. Surely you see how these licensing fees create disincentive, and how this disincentive is bad for Apple in the long run. Other companies with far fewer financial resources than Apple manage to get along just fine without licensing fees. If Apple really had the desire, they could get by without them too. >You don't have to pay any fee unless you distribute an application. The >$100 fee is for commercial applications. Presumably if you sell >applications for a living you can afford a licensing fee. I don't think charging for these kinds of things is justified by people's ability to pay. I mean, presumably if I am selling applications for a living, I could afford to pay $500 for System Software upgrades. Does this mean that Apple should start charging $500 for system upgrades? Of course not. >> Apple should not be running their development services as a profit >> center. It's quite apparent that they are doing just that (the recent > >If you think these licensing fees make a profit, then you are mistaken. Hmm, let's think about this statement for a minute. Presumably, lots (dozens? hundreds?) of people are sending Apple checks for $100, and Apple is cashing them, and somehow Apple is managing not to make any money on the deal. Gee, you must have a lot of overhead there at Apple. :-) But seriously, where is Apple's cost in this transaction? Anyways, what I actually said was that Apple should not be trying to make money off their development services as a whole (not just licensing fees). Since you were careful not to deny this, and I am trying to win this argument :-), I will take this as an admission that the converse is in fact true: i.e., Apple does indeed make a profit from their development services. Herein lies the crux of the argument. I argue that such a policy, while it may make perfect fiscal sense to a lot of myopic bean counters at Apple, in the long run, is bad for the Macintosh and thus bad for Apple. Apple should concentrate on selling boxes, which is where the real money is, and supply the support software which adds value to the machine at their cost. In this latter category I would put both system software and development tools/services. Apple has a commendable policy with respect to the first item, and a mixed record on the second: they give some things away from free (i.e. ResEdit, tech notes), but gouge for other things (i.e., MPW shell/compilers, MacApp, ACL). My fear is that Apple will shoot itself in the foot by pricing the small developer out of the market. In my opinion, the small developer is where most of the nifty innovations come from. If Apple squeezes the little guy out, only the big, boring players will be left, and the Macintosh will suffer as a result. Would you really like to see the Mac market left to clumsy, lumbering behemoths like Microsoft and Ashton-Tate, companies for whom feeble efforts like Excel 2.2 represent "innovation"? Not me. Case in point: look at Nisus, a product from a relatively small developer. Microsoft has been hacking on Word for five or six years, and these guys at Paragon come along one day and just blow it out of the water. Amazing. We need more people like this. We aren't going to get them if they have to cough up $250 for a shell. It just makes good business sense for Apple to make Macintosh development as easy and as cheap as possible. The benefits of such a policy might not be as tangible as a check for $100, but they are just as real, and much more significant over the long haul. >Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. >Object Specialist ---- Mark Vita vita@crd.ge.com General Electric CRD ..!uunet!crd.ge.com!vita Schenectady, NY