Antonio Bleile wrote:
> Is anybody here on the list owning a commercial
> license of ArToolKit? I have sent several emails
> to sales@a .............. but it seems as if nobody
> was at the other end reading those mails. In case
> it would be impossible to get such a commercial 
> license, how do people use a GPL'ed library in
> their commercial applications? I could think of
> writing some kind of server that wraps the calls
> to ArToolKit and release the server as GPL... Or
> write a plugin that wraps calls to ArToolKit?

Hi Toni,

I'm glad to hear that someone else is getting the same treatment.  I had 
one reply long ago which laid out the commercial licensing costs (very 
reasonable).  Since then, I've had three emails go unanswered.  I don't 
know what to think about this.  Note, I have a commercial 
ARToolkitPlus-based program I want to deploy in April.  Lack of 
communication from Philip and co is a major worry since the client has 
already been quoted ...

Cheers,
Darran.


-- 
Darran Edmundson [darran@e ............]
Interactive visualization for museums and industry
http://www.edmstudio.com

Hi,

Is anybody here on the list owning a commercial
license of ArToolKit? I have sent several emails
to sales@a .............. but it seems as if nobody
was at the other end reading those mails. In case
it would be impossible to get such a commercial 
license, how do people use a GPL'ed library in
their commercial applications? I could think of
writing some kind of server that wraps the calls
to ArToolKit and release the server as GPL... Or
write a plugin that wraps calls to ArToolKit?

Any hints appreciated,

  Toni

Antonio Bleile wrote:
> Is anybody here on the list owning a commercial
> license of ArToolKit? I have sent several emails
> to sales@a .............. but it seems as if nobody
> was at the other end reading those mails. In case
> it would be impossible to get such a commercial
> license, how do people use a GPL'ed library in
> their commercial applications? I could think of
> writing some kind of server that wraps the calls
> to ArToolKit and release the server as GPL... Or
> write a plugin that wraps calls to ArToolKit?
hi Antonio,

If you can't reach the guys at Artoolworks, you might want to send an
email Mark Billinghurst.

About the legal rights (this is how I understand it, I'm not a lawyer
so don't count on me defending this...): GPL allows you to do whatever
you want with the code as long as you don't release (give out) a
product. If do release, then people who have your product can ask for
the full source code of the program that includes the GPL'ed code.
People have mentioned before that putting the GPL code into a separate
executable would be enough to not have to release the rest of the
program. So automatically starting a "tracking server" in the
background and using interprocess communication should work fine and
invisible to the user. Yet, I don't think that anybody ever tried this
in court, so you'd be on the safe side buying a license (but the way I
see it it is not a matter of motivation that you'd lacking...).

bye,
Daniel

Hi all,

First up, I apologise if any of you are having difficulty getting all  
the information you need on license arrangements and costs. We  
(ARToolworks, and HIT Lab) have been deluged with requests for  
information and I am working through the backlog so everyone's  
requests will be answered.

Please be aware that I endeavour to respond to everyone's requests  
for information with an introductory message within 48 hours, so if  
you email us and don't get that message, then its likely that your  
email is being filtered rather than being unread. As I get around 200  
valid emails per day and over 1000 spam per day, the filter has to be  
quite strict!

We have also had some significant R&D work going on in the  
background, which will hopefully expand the options available for  
everyone and allow us to move away from some older difficult-to- 
support pieces of code such as the vrml renderer.

Regards,
Phil.