So I was reading the license agreement and Section 4 Paragraph 2 basically stops a developer from developing anything for the web that a player could host.
"Developer shall not a tie a Player’s access to, or use of, the Application to the purchase of any other product or service, "
At first I figure it would prevent everything, since a player MUST purchase a computer to use a any product a developer creates. But, the player should have a computer.
However, if I develop something that has to be hosted, then the player MUST purchase a hosting “service” and if I follow the license to the law, I can’t develop an app that would require a player to purchase a hosting “service”. So if we are going to develop something web based, the developer has to host the application if we follow the license agreement.
I know the license was intended on preventing the developer from forcing the player to use another product or service created by the developer, but as it’s stated, it blocks the developer from developing anything that the player would need to purchase any product or any service. Whether its a generic application that can be hosted with any hosting “service”, or an add-on for a clan specific hosting “service”, or an add-on for a more robust but non-free content management “product”, all these things have nothing to do with the developer, but the license bans them because they are tied to the players use of the web application.
Am I missing something and don’t tell me that’s not what they mean, but that’s what the license agreement states which overrides what they “mean” because the license agreement is what we agree to abide by.
My thought is that I’m sure you are better at development than interpreting legalese.
Building a car, that will require petrol/gas to make it run, is not a case that would “tie … access to, or the use of… to the purchase of any other product or service.” Although there is a logical case to be made for your reading of it, it’s not even close to any legal reading anywhere in the world.
This line is only prohibiting requiring some other product or service you are selling.
It means you cant force a player to purchase a product or service (such as a subscription to amazon prime for example) in order to ALSO gain access to YOUR app. If you’re building a deployable web-app, an end-user can happily host that themselves on their OWN computer (i used to do so for a site I personally ran). Or you can charge them a subscription cost to access YOUR eve app (in isk ONLY though), and still be fine.
Besides, if this was true the way you thought, do you think the Neocom and Neocom II apps would have made it into the AppStore for iOS devices?
"Developer shall not a tie a Player’s access to, or use of, the Application to the purchase of any other product or service, "
As said, this mean that if you host it, a player shall not have to purchase anything to use it.
Speaking about your example the “Player want to host the app”: in this case, he is not “the player” anymore, but become the “developer”. So whether he buy a PC/Server/anything to make it run, it’s not anymore covered by the previous statement, but it will cover the future users of the service he now hosts.
That’s true since the player would have to create a developer account and use their credentials to run the app if they host it with a hosting service or wherever, thus becoming a developer.
Thanks everyone for your input. And yes Anjyl I am definitely a better programmer then lawyer
