west@gargoyle.UUCP (Steve Westfall) (02/08/86)
I posted this before, but there was no response to it, and I'm
not sure that it made it out of our site alive, so here goes again:
What is your opinion of this???
*** NOWHERE *** in their advertizing or promotional literature that I
have seen, and nowhere in their C-Isam manual (including the license
agreement), does Relational Database Systems, Inc. ("RDBS") ever
state that applications programmers who use their C-Isam file management
product must pay royalties to RDBS. But recently during a phone
conversation with someone at RDBS it was incidentally mentioned
that I am using C-Isam with my applications programming.
I was then informed that I must sign a royalty agreement and send
RDBS $2500.00 ($25.00 for each of the first 100 copies I will sell)
before I can sell my program to anyone.
I have no objection to paying royalties to RDBS, and I am about to
put the check in the mail, but I am concerned that, with their
royalty policy mentioned nowhere in their literature, I will be
paying them royalties while others in a similar situation
(my competitors) will not pay because no one ever told them they
had to! Does RDBS have the right to ask me for royalties in this
case?
Steve Westfall uucp: ihnp4!gargoyle!west
Infotronx, Inc.
159 W. Roosevelt Rd. Phone: 312-231-6054 (ofc)
West Chicago, IL 60185