Re: SDK - WAS: Insteon - watch out for RF interference

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

The terms "labeled compatible" and "SMARTHOME's sole discretion" would worry
me. I'm sure it would be easy enough to reverse engineer without the SDK
thus avoiding any contractual limitations but why help a company that's so
deliberately unhelpful?

Ralph <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Dave Houston wrote:
>> I haven't found any detailed documentation of the protocol. I presume you
>> would get it with the SDK but the agreement for that seemed to violate the
>> 13th Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude (They can block you
>> from selling your developed Insteon device if they wish.) so I opted not to
>> get the SDK.
>>
>
>Yeah, I was pretty put off by the agreement also and wrote to them. They
>claim, and a closer reading seems to support it, that the restriction is
>against using the Insteon name on your products, not selling software
>developed with the SDK.
>
>Note below that the prohibition is just against Insteon LABELED
>applications.
>
>"The distribution and commercialization of any INSTEON labeled
>compatible applications developed by you will require and will be
>subject to the terms of a separately executed agreement between you and
>SMARTHOME, at SMARTHOME's sole discretion."
>
>Presumably, if they let you sell it at all, they'll want something like
>royalty payments and/or exclusive marketing rights if you use the
>Insteon name on software developed with the SDK. My reading of the
>agreement though is that you can market software developed with the SDK
>as long as you don't use the Insteon name. It doesn't sound like there's
>any library code either, so they couldn't restrict distribution that way.
>
>It's still all a bit of a crock of course and would make selling
>anything developed a lot harder. We still haven't decided if it's worth
>the business risk to start a development project, the kit price though
>is in the noise. We haven't ordered one yet just so we can talk to
>people about it. Once you sign the agreement it seems like you can't
>discuss it any further.
>
>Maybe like the old Unix (U**x) stuff it would have to be marketed as for
>I*****n ;-}