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| BARKE oikosophia | |
Shape Viewer Objects, Frequently Asked Questions.
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How much does it cost? |
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Shape Viewer Objects is free for personal, non-profit or commercial use. There will never be any royalty payments required. However, you are still bounded to the license agreement and copyright notices and acknowledgment ware request. To maximize
your productivity, we offer a one day Shape Viewer Objects training
seminar additional source code, plus expertise in building GIS
applications with Shape Viewer Objects. |
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Do you offer the source code? |
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Yes. Shape Viewer Objects source code is available as Borland Delphi Pascal units. By the license
agreement, you may only use this source code to develop applications
(i.e. executable files). You have no license to create or distribute
Shape Viewer Objects or Shape Viewer Objects source code, in any
part, to another language or library (including but not limited
to DLL's, or Delphi packages). |
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Who can use Shape Viewer Objects? |
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Anyone
may download and use Shape Viewer Objects. |
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Is Shape Viewer Objects in the public domain? |
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No. Ecological Software Solutions LLC maintains and rigorously enforces its copyright and distribution rights of Shape Viewer Objects. However, this
only applies to the component classes themselves. Ecological Software Solutions LLC provides a no-nonsense license agreement for developed
software. You may use and distribute software created with Shape
Viewer Objects without restrictions or royalties. |
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Is Shape Viewer Objects open source? |
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No. Ecological Software Solutions LLC maintains and rigorously enforces its copyright
and distribution rights of Shape Viewer Objects. Ecological Software Solutions LLC provides source code at its own discretion and is not
required to continue this source code distribution, nor does it
allow or license anyone to distribute Shape Viewer Objects source
code. See an example copyright unit header here. |
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Can I write GPL or LGPL software with Shape Viewer Objects? |
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The short answer is "No". Ecological Software Solutions LLC maintains and rigorously enforces its copyright and unique distribution rights of Shape Viewer Objects. Ecological Software Solutions LLC provides source code at its own discretion but does not allow or license anyone to distribute Shape Viewer Objects source code. This is in direct conflict with the GPL and is a potential conflict within the LGPL license agreement. While Ecological Software Solutions LLC supports the "copy left" concept and believes that GPL source code projects play an important role in today's software environment, it is not in Ecological Software Solutions LLC business interest at this time to allow third party distribution of its source code. This is a copyright declaration by Ecological Software Solutions LLC for Shape Viewer Objects and professional or amateur opinion regarding the legal interpretation of the GPL or LGPL license in this context are mute and will not be further considered if provided. You can use open source software or libraries released under other open source license agreements to write applications that include Shape Viewer Objects and distribute your software using these open source software and Shape Viewer Objects as long as you verify that the license agreement with the open source software or libraries you are using does not conflict with the Shape Viewer Objects license agreement and the copyrights, especially distribution rights, held by Ecological Software Solutions LLC. Again, the GPL and LGPL licenses do conflict, either actually or potentially, with the Shape Viewer Objects license and you can not use software, source code or libraries with Shape Viewer Objects that utilizes these licenses.
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Why did you change the license agreement? |
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Addition text
was added only to clarify existing copyrights held by Ecological Software Solutions LLC. No change in copyrights or end user rights occurred. |
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If I make changes to the source code, does Ecological Software Solutions LLC now have the copyright to the source code I added? |
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Yes and no. An explanation is provided below, but this is a complex topic. If you are still not clear on this issue, feel free to e-mail Ecological Software Solutions LLC for further clarification. The answer is "Yes" in the sense that any source code you include in Shape Viewer Objects is added to an existing work and the copyright of that existing work, in its entirety, is held by Ecological Software Solutions LLC. This act of adding to an existing work is regarded in copyright law as a "derived work". By international copyright law, the copyright of the entire derived work, as a whole, is owned by the copyright holder of the original work, in this case by Ecological Software Solutions LLC. Ecological Software Solutions LLC enforces this copyright, including the right to be the sole distributors of the source code. However, Ecological Software Solutions LLC is not interested in your source code per se,
only in maintaining its own copyrights to Shape Viewer Objects source
code. Therefore, the answer is also "No" in regards to
allowing you to use your source code however you wish when in isolation
from Shape
Viewer Objects
(that is, in another software unit or project other than Shape
Viewer Objects).
That is, Ecological Software Solutions LLC considers your source code,
in isolation, yours and places no restrictions on your use of your
source code added to Shape
Viewer Objects in any other project. You may even distribute your
personal source code when in isolation from Shape Viewer Objects.
The only exception to this is in regards to GPL or
LGPL source code. You can not include in Shape
Viewer Objects
GPL or LGPL source code, or later can you GPL or LGPL your source
code that you added to Shape
Viewer Objects, unless you first remove if from the Shape Viewer
Objects source code,
since this is in conflict with the Shape
Viewer Objects
copyrights held by Ecological Software Solutions LLC. |
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Do I have to send source code I add to Ecological Software Solutions LLC? |
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No.
However,
if you make changes to SVO that you do not want "undone"
with the next update, you may provide either source code or an algorithm
with a request the feature is added to Shape Viewer Objects (use
the request feature form). Source code you send becomes the
property of Ecological Software Solutions LLC. Algorithms are better
to provide if you require copyright protection of your source code.
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Why are you letting me use Shape Viewer Objects for free? |
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The primary business of Ecological Software Solutions LLC has always been in consulting and development of GIS and database software. Shape Viewer Objects grew out of this work and will continue to be actively enhanced and updated. Since ESS business is primarily one of support and consulting, it was decided to extend this core business activity to the component classes developed rather than selling components. If you wish
to make use of Shape Viewer Objects to their fullest potential a
training courses in component use
is offered for software and database design and development. |
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Are there any restrictions to my use of Shape Viewer Objects? |
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The
software is provided for, and can only be used with, Borland Delphi.
Other language options and support are up to the sole discretion
of Ecological Software Solutions LLC. This means you are not licensed
or allowed to port Shape Viewer Objects functions or classes to
any other language unless this is done is a partnership agreement
with Ecological Software Solutions LLC. |
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Can I distribute or sell my software that I write using Shape Viewer Objects? |
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Yes.
There are no restrictions or royalties to distribute original software
applications created with Shape Viewer Objects. |
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Can I use Shape Viewer Objects in another programming language such as Visual Basic or C? |
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No. Ecological Software Solutions LLC maintains and rigorously enforces its copyright
and distribution rights of Shape Viewer Objects including reserving
for itself the right to transfer the Shape Viewer Object classes
to other languages. |
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Does SVO support ArcView (i.e. ESRI) shape files, MapObject interchange, or data interchange (i.e. dxf) formats? |
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Yes,
it supports all three of these open, published formats, but support
for MapObjects and DXF are limited at this time. Improved format support
for these formats will be added in the near future. It also supports
internal Text file and dBASE reading and writing as well as any number
of custom database and other formats by using the OnRead and OnWrite
events. |
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Do you support ESRI e00 format? |
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No. The e00 format is considered by ESRI to be a proprietary format. Under one interpretation of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, offering to the public (that is distribution of) software that can use proprietary formats to read copyrighted works without getting proper permission may be illegal in the US. Because a digital map image can be copyrighted, the DMCA may include the e00 format. Ecological Software Solutions LLC does not advocate illegal activities, but the
DMCA is not currently an international agreement, and its possible
restrictions in developing or using a 3rd party e00 components may
not apply to you. |
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Proj4,
a freely available library.
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Q
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Yes.
Inherited components based on Shape Viewer Objects are yours to
do with as you wish, even selling as third party add-ons to Shape
Viewer Objects. However, you can only sell or distribute your new
component classes and units. You can at no time sell or distribute
core Shape Viewer Objects classes or source code with your inherited
component. These can only be distributed by Ecological Software Solutions LLC which retains its sole distribution rights.
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Yes. But any change you make is a derived work. Under international copyright law, Ecological Software Solutions LLC retains all copyrights to derived works, including, but not limited to, the fact that you can not distribute or sell source code from derived works. This restriction does not apply to inherited component classes. If you wish to develop component classes that work to enhance or support Shape Viewer Objects, you may do so and sell or distribute your derived components for commercial or noncommercial use. |
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Q
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This is difficult to say given that SVO inherits hundreds of methods and properties from parent objects. If one only considers methods, properties and events that are only unique to SVO, a conservative estimate would be over 500. Because of rich language inherent to Shape Viewer Objects, Ecological Software Solutions LLC offers training courses to assist you in being most productive developing software with Shape Viewer Objects. |
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Q
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A
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Although Shape Viewer Objects does not have specific internet mapping functions, such features can be constructed around the core Shape Viewer Objects Libraies to create JPEG map images that can be actively inserted into web pages. |
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Last Update: October 16, 2005