Property Rights

[Jonathan]

Hi all, I'm a very, very, very novice programmer, but I'm hoping to
learn quickly. Anyway, I'm interested in starting to develop webapps
and this place looks like a great place to start, especially since
I've had a dash of experience with python.

What I'm wondering is, let's say I have a stroke of genius and come up
with the next stumbleupon while working on a project that I use
google's app engine to develop. Is it going to be a problem for me to
make money off of if it's through googles app engine? I skimmed to TOS
but I'm no lawyer so it was very difficult to understand. Apparently I
give them a royalty free license to alter and modify anything I put
up, but at the same time they don't claim to own any of it. Confusing!
So basically, my questions is lets say 5 years from now I make
something which has the potential to make a ton of money, am I going
to be safe to retire or is google going to take all of it somehow?

[Nick Johnson (Google)]

Hi Jonathan,

Rest assured that we have neither desire nor intention to claim your intellectual property. The license you grant in the TOS is purely to allow us to legitimately provide the App Engine service.

Note, of course, that I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I can't speak to specific legal details. If you're concerned about this, I recommend consulting a lawyer and asking for their interpretation of the Terms of Service to be sure.

-Nick Johnson

--
Nick Johnson, App Engine Developer Programs Engineer
Google Ireland Ltd. :: Registered in Dublin, Ireland, Registration Number: 368047