Re[2]: Shockwave Licensing Petition - shockwave *is* free!

[Mark Hayhurst]

     John,

     

     I'm sure everyone appreciates the effort you put in on this question 

     so regularly!  However, while one could suggest that who are we to 

     question MM's licensing policy it does seem illogical and obstructive.

     

     You seem to say that the purpose behind licensing redistribution is 

     financial (pays for "the engineering effort that goes in") and yet 

     surely no _additional_ engineering effort does go in. Moreover, the 

     stated alternative is to point users at web downloads. I would gate to 

     add up the amount of bandwidth, ergo time, that has been spent in this 

     forum and others like it that cover how to do detection and download. 

     In my experience _none_ of the solutions to date solve this problem 

     and _all_ result in hassle for user and developer alike. Aftershock 

     itself simply does not work! that is, it fails under enough 

     circumstances that we cannot use it.

     

     It has been pointed out that a back door to getting the OCX versions 

     is to install IE or any other product that bundles Flash. That's a 

     sledgehammer to crack a nut. Besides MM gets no money for that (over 

     anbd above whatever MS have 'paid' you already for the deal) and 

     neither do you get to find out that your number of installed Flash 

     players has gone up by one.

     

     It seems to me that the only ones who suffer in this whole deal are 

     those who are doing an awful lot to promote and evangelise Flash in 

     the first place - the developers - often indivduals or small companies 

     for whom the licensing deals (at least the ones we've heard about) 

     would be outside budget.

     

     It has to be asked whether whoever came up with this bizarre policy at 

     MM has any plans to review it or explain it ?

     

     Mark

     

     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Subject: Re: Shockwave Licensing Petition - shockwave *is* free!

Author:

jdowdellmacromedia [dot] com

 at INTERNET

Date:    31/03/98 13:57



At 6:19 PM 3/27/98, Rob Koberg - Home wrote:

>If you sign up with microsoft to be a distributor of their 

>browser (which is free and easy).  Then you automatically get to

>distribute several other things for free of which I believe are the 

>controls for Director and Flash.

     

     

That's what I've been saying all along!!  <exasperated wail>

     

Any websurfer is free to download their own personal copy of the Shockwave 

engines. They'll be auto-detected, they'll be auto-installed, they'll 

always be up-to-date and otherwise Hygenically Sanitary.

     

If you have a client that uses web browsers but does NOT go on the web at 

all, then their browser and operating system CDs have licensed the 

Shockwave engines and have installers. If you're only "surfing" offline, 

then your browser CD has Shockwave.

     

Now, if you have a business client, and they want to use web browsers, and 

they don't want their employees on that scary internet, and they don't let 

people install their own software from CD, and so they want to put 

everything on their own server... well, then *that* is when they get 

charged for the engineering effort done here. (It really does help to pay 

the bills.)

     

We also get licensing fees from those creating *applications* that use 

Flash or Director as component multimedia engines. Visual Basic and Delphi 

people and all are getting big on this, and we do charge them more for 

redistribution than we do web designers.

     

Rephrased, hey-yeah-sure-absolutely *do* install from browser or OS CD if 

you wish.

     

     

     

>I believe the argument MM will give

>is, "Well, your clients won't be getting the most up to date version." 

>What I say to that is great.  Who cares?

     

I do usually note this, when I retype the basic message with bonechilling 

regularity, but I also add that you can absolutely set minimum versions 

with the free Smart Shockwave button. There is no need to demand the latest 

version, but you can certainly specify a minimum version in your HTML, and 

the Smart Shockwave technology effort makes this easy.

     

Rephrased, it's not always necessary to play back in the latest engines. 

That's a design decision that you can make, yourself.

     

     

Summary: Anyone can download their own copy. There are also licensed copies 

on your browser and OS CDs. Licensing is only for those who wish to 

distribute the core engine themselves, and besides a monetary cost there are 

also security, versioning, and support costs with it too.

     

     

jd

     

     

John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

     

Private email options: http://www.macromedia.com/support/priority.html 

Search technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/

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Online savvy: http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=netiquette 

Entertainment on the web: http://shockrave.macromedia.com/

     

     

     

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