Friday, 9 February 2007
RANT: Adobe and Flex ant tasks licensing
I have nearly written a build for Flex Scheduling Framework except that I'm burping on how to include the Flex libraries. I discovered Adobe's Flex Ant Tasks. Since the Flex Scheduling Framework is under the BSD license, I was hopeful that the ant tasks would be as well. I was dismayed to see this license instead.
2.1.1 No Modifications, No Reverse Engineering. Except to the extent expressly provided in this Agreement, Licensee shall not modify, port, adapt or translate the Software. Licensee shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software. Notwithstanding the foregoing, decompiling the Software is permitted to the extent the laws of Licensee's jurisdiction give Licensee the right to do so to obtain information necessary to render the Software interoperable with other software; provided, however, that Licensee must first request such information from Adobe and Adobe may, in its discretion, either provide such information to Licensee or impose reasonable conditions, including a reasonable fee, on such use of the source code to ensure that Adobe's and its suppliers' proprietary rights in the source code for the Software are protected.
The source is included, but I can't modify it and I can't "reverse engineer" it...whatever that means. So I'm afraid to look at them and I'm afraid to use them and... Guys...do you REALLY need this license to protect your secret ant tasks? I guess the syntax of compc is a pretty tightly held secret given its lack of documentation...GRRRRRR.
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