Maybe I'm a bit confused by the original question, but I always viewed
the ability to hide source code as a major plus for using appengine.
For independent developers, who don't have access to IP lawyers, this
enables them to avoid the piracy problem entirely. I think the
scenario he mentioned, explicitly repackaging and reselling the
appengine service itself might be a violation, but does this extend to
every such case?
To be more exact, do you think it's a TOS violation to sell the
deployment of an application as a "service"? You aren't transferring
any rights, as the customer has full capabilities to replace your
deployment with his/her own code and is the only party who deals with
App Engine billing (if the issue arises). The benefit of this is that
you could write the code to "expire" after a time period and therefore
sell subscriptions without worrying about someone violating your
license. I'm considering this for a future application, so I'd be
very interested to hear more..
Thanks
On May 12, 11:19 am, "Ikai L (Google)" <
ika...@google.com> wrote:
> I'm going to preface this with a warning that I am not a lawyer, this is
> just my interpretation of the Terms of Service.
>
> It could be a possible violation:
>
>
http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html
>
> You may be in violation of this:
>
> 7.3. Unless Google has given you specific written permission to do so (e.g.,
> through an open source software license), you may not assign (or grant a
> sub-license of) your rights to use the Google App Engine Software, grant a
> security interest in or over your rights to use the Google App Engine
> Software, or otherwise transfer any part of your rights to use the Software.
>
> By providing a dashboard on top of Google App Engine, you may be, in effect,
> providing a sub-license.
>
> <
http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html>Is this scenario avoidable?
> >
google-appengi...@googlegroups.com<google-appengine%2Bunsubscrib
e...@googlegroups.com>
> > .