ADK license questions

[Lynn Fredricks]

Hi Alex,

> But.. Many other database engines (commercial & free) have 
> multiple third-party GUIs available, again both commercial & free.

Absolutely - that's why those with an interest in doing that usually contact
us. We've granted exceptions for several projects that were on the edge of
the license because it was clear there was no harm to anyone. What's
important for us though is that developers who are close to duplicating our
IP with our IP are obligated to contact us, rather than us having to play
cop.

Almost all database developers have some form of restrictions; some are more
visible or "direct" than others - the guard dog at the gate vs the tiger
trap.

There are a lot of developer versions of products from Microsoft that
explicitly stated you cannot build products with them that compete with a
Microsoft product.

Then there are indirect ones. Consider for example, building a database
front end around a database system, the owner of which holds an extremely
large number of patents related to customer interaction with data. They may
not explicitly say "hey, you can't do that", but in your implementation you
could duplicate easily their patented process and give them legal context
for nailing you.

There are some public domain databases that have no such associations of
course, and the freedom to do whatever you want with it is useful *if* there
is a defining feature of your product that requires that freedom.

> Any application developed utilising the ADK is basically a 
> GUI in some form or another. Some more advanced than others.

That's true indeed, but not all GUIs are front end database development
tools. Most applications have a specific purpose to them, though necessarily
that purpose could be really broad.

Consider coming up with a brand new personal information manager - something
like Outlook. PIMs have to be very flexible, but most likely you'll have
multiple tables which have clear schema definitions for how you handle
personal information, email, task management, events, attachments, and even
custom field types. Of all of these, you still have the flexibility to allow
your customer to define 20% of the fields in the product. 

>  From my limited testing the new Admin Studio (4) is really 
> good but it seems limiting to put development restrictions on 
> using the engine.

It is nothing new - the EULA has had almost the same restrictions in it
since Valentina 2.

If you have a specific project in mind, don't be afraid to contact us.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
President
Paradigma Software
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

Valentina SQL Server: The Ultra-fast, Royalty Free Database Server