Re: database engine

In article <8935@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> infmx!obelix!johnl@uunet.UU.NET (Jonathan Leffler) writes: >}>ENGINES: >}>You need an engine licence for each machine which runs an engine. If the >}>engine is ever used by a development system, you need a development engine; >}>otherwise, you only need a run-time engine. End of story -- that was easy. >} >}Why is that? They are identical aren't they? > >Since when has logic had anything to do with law? >It is a matter of the terms of the licensing of the software. > > [ ... ] > >}As far as I can tell I-4GL r/t contains essentially only message files, >}which are a subset of those in RDS. > >Again, this is a legal issue, not a technological one. >You would need both licences. I often wonder why this sort of thing happens. Imagine if a wanted to use the back end of my pen to make holes in plastic and the pen manufacturer demanded that I pay a special "hole-making" licence! These sort of ridiculous policies encourage people to cheat the system (understating their number of users as well, of course) because the system is so unjustifiably silly. Maybe it's just that most database companies are American? Americans seem to love having enormous law suits and how better to create plenty of law suits than to have fee scales which offer large disincentives to people who pay what they "should" pay and encourage people to "cheat"? -- _--_|\\ Craig Macbride <lhscmc@luxor.latrobe.edu.au> / \\ <s900387@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> \\_.--.*/ v