Re: [xmlvm-users] xmlvm-users Digest, Vol 4, Issue 7 (Re: Licence issues)

[Jeff N. <not...@gm...>]

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:30 PM, blake miller <bla...@gm...>wrote:

> I'm thinking $100 donation for each application written using XMLVM.
> I'm trying to think about what is reasonable for both parties.  At
> that price, it is worth it to ME.  Right now the project is still
> buggy, and several features that are necessary to build a usable
> application are lacking.  When you get into the $300 donation range,
> as a developer, it's better to spend that $300 on a mac mini (which I
> know is probably more near the $500 range), learn Cocoa Touch and
> Obj-C, and have the whole API available, along with the original
> simulator.  No concerns about, will this work on the actual device or
> not.  Testing on the device immediately available.
>
> But of course, the key feature of the project is to develop in your
> favorite language.  You can't get that anywhere else as far as I can
> see (for native applications written in Windows).
>
> But that reminds me, I'm going to need a mac mini(or a good friend)
> anyway to compile the Obj-C code that XMLVM generates.  I probably
> would not invest more than $200 in contribution to the project.  I
> would offer up my coding skills, but I'm not the greatest coder, and
> I've not yet gotten how the whole project works under my grasp.
>
> But think of this...I mentioned to a couple of my buddies last night
> that I was developing an iPhone application in Java.  They both are
> long-time Java developers.  They just looked at me wide-eyed and said
> "Whhaaaat?".  You may not have even begun to tap the market, and if
> you did, even at $100 or $200 per app, you could make a fortune it
> seems.
>
> Just my thoughts.
>
>
A mature GPL/commercial system with a similar goals (write once, run on many
mobile systems) utilizing a Ruby framework is charging $500/app. Interesting
to note that they're seeing some commercial success with this approach.
Check out http://rhomobile.com for details.

If I have any comments on the whole xmlvm licensing matter (not that anybody
asked ;) ), it's the following two points:

1) I think that the nature of the code produced by cross-compiling iPhone
(and other framework?) apps--specifically their inclusion of GPL bridge
code--should be clearly stated in the License section of the
http://xmlvm.org/download/ page. Normally, if I came across a GPL
"compiler", I would assume that any output of the software would be of my
own licensing, not affected by the compiler's license due to some
intricacies of how things are implemented.

2) The download page should also state the version (v2) of the GPL license
that is in use, as GPLv3 is vastly different, asnd currently requires
download browsing of the subversion repo to discover.