[PyKDE] Various questions relating to commercial licences

[Mike Thompson]

Hi Phil,

I'm attempting to understand some licensing issues, find some solutions and
I need some clarifications.  I sincerely hope my questions are not FAQs or
have easily available answers because I seem to have looked everywhere.

I'm considering using Eric & PyQt for commercial use BUT I'm on Windows XP
which seems is making my task *hard* because there's no evaluation licences
for PyQt.

Some Issues:
    -  I've downloaded a demonstration version of BlackAdder, but it seems a
       toy IDE. All the same, I might still have to buy it because it seems
to
       supply a commercial version of Qt more cheaply than direct
       purchase from Trolltech.

       But I'm left unsure about PyQt. At the Kompany site I can't find
       clarification that a commercial licence of BlackAdder gives my a
       commercial licence of PyQt.  Can anyone clarify this please?

    -  I noticed that the BlackAdder "FAQ and Roadmap" says:
         "We will not be developing Eric further. We will accept patches
          and will continue to distribute it with PyQt. "

       Is this right?  Eric news at
            http://www.die-offenbachs.de/detlev/eric3-news.html
       talks of new releases and that seemed to contradict the Kompany's
       statement.

       Also, how are Eric and BlackAdder related?  Eric looks (from
       screenshots etc) to be much more functional, so this puzzles
       me given BlackAdder is the commercial offering.

    -  I would like to look at Eric before I dive into the whole mix but I
       can't seem to find a way to do that (I don't have linux available).
       The IDE is quite an important part of the mix to me, and I HAVE
       to be able to have a look before I leap.

       Even with the BlackAdder demo installed (which is as close as
       I can get to effectively having an evaluation version of PyQt,
       I think), I can't fire up Eric because there's no qtext module
       available for QScintilla.

       So I'm stuck.  Am I missing a way of seeing Eric in action (other
       than having Linux around).

   -   If I were to buy BlackAdder, thus obtaining a licence for Qt
       and PyQt (I think), would I then have enough to compile
       QScintilla etc, and start to use Eric?

       I only ask this because it seems the PyQt licence only gives
       source code, not binaries for Windows, and I was worried
       that the "level of Qt-ness" (C++ source code?) I would obtain
       through a BlackAdder licence might still leave me without Eric,
       EVEN IF I was able to evaluate it and proceed.

   -   Are there others out there using PyQt and Eric on windows?  Can
       you provide a comparision with, say, Boa/wxPython?

At this point, I feel completely stuck and like going down the apparently
easier Boa/wxDesigner/wxPython road.  This is my last attempt before
giving up.

Sorry if my questions are confused and I'm sorry that some of my
questions relate to a couple of different commercial offerings.  I know
I should probably directly ask the various companies involved, but I'm
hoping that an e-mail to a central mail list might provide all answers
in one go.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Cheers,
Mike

____________________________________________________________________________
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Mike Thompson
Day 8 Technology P/L
Sydney, Australia
Ph: 0414 514 415
e-mail: mike.thompson at day8.com.au

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