Insteon license discussion
Neil Cherry
insteond software so I don't get in trouble (they did not ask me to
pull the software I removed it of my own accord).
I tried to search for the message where some folks were working with
Insteon on their license. I'd like to know who has spoken to them so
we can try to get this bundled as one group (we all work together and
accomplish one goal. So who has already spoken to Insteon about their
SDK?
--
Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry nch...@comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/ (Text only)
http://hcs.sourceforge.net/ (HCS II)
http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog
Dennis Brothers
"Neil Cherry" <n...@wolfgang.uucp> wrote in message
news:slrndhm1i...@wolfgang.uucp...
> Dave was right about the Insteon License and I've now had to pull my
> insteond software so I don't get in trouble (they did not ask me to
> pull the software I removed it of my own accord).
>
> I tried to search for the message where some folks were working with
> Insteon on their license. I'd like to know who has spoken to them so
> we can try to get this bundled as one group (we all work together and
> accomplish one goal. So who has already spoken to Insteon about their
> SDK?
>
I have - here's what I posted in another thread:
FWIW, I sent Bob Cusey (Smarthome's Insteon busines development guy) an
email expressing concern about their licensing strictures. My primary
concern was the freeware/shareware/open source issue. Bob and Smarthome's
Business Development veep (didn't catch his name, alas) phoned me to get a
more accurate handle on just what it was that bothered me. Apparently,
they've seen some of the negative reactions here and on the various HA fora,
but haven't been able to contact the people complaining in order to get to
the crux of their issues.
They assured me that the license was not intended to preclude the
freeware/shareware/open source options - the Smarthome validation of
Insteon-related products is only intended to be required for commercial
products that use the Insteon logo ( kind of like Microsoft's
Windows-certified program). They agreed (this is my take on it) that the
curent license is ambiguous and possibly hard to understand; they said that
they would change it to make it clearer that amateur/small developers were
not required to jump through the validation hoops.
I regret that I didn't raise Dave Houston's confidentiality/NDA concerns -
the phone call caught me a bit by surprise (I had emailed Bob my phone
number, at his request, about five minute before the phone rang). I
understand Dave's issues, but they're not mine.
On the strength of Bob's and the veep's assurances, I ordered the Insteon
SDK (and am about to order the hardware development module).
Again, this is all FWIW.
- Dennis Brothers
P.S. - I agree that Insteon looks like something you can hang your hat on.
Neil Cherry
>
> "Neil Cherry" <n...@wolfgang.uucp> wrote in message
> news:slrndhm1i...@wolfgang.uucp...
>> accomplish one goal. So who has already spoken to Insteon about their
>> SDK?
> I have - here's what I posted in another thread:
Thanks, I'll print that out and work with Bob and crew to resolve
this. I'm afraid I can't let it go without something 'legal' or this
could easily come back to bite me in the backend code. I could easily
post the entire contents of their PDF in the batch of programs I need
(not directly but I tend to comment a lot by direct reference) and
then run into legal problems because the original license was much
tighter. Or someone else could take the info out of my program create
their own (within the rights of the GPL) and then Insteon may take
exception with their program and I get stuck in the middle of a legal
battle. I don't have time for legal battles.