west@gargoyle.UUCP (Steve Westfall) (01/26/86)
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 (i.e., link it with code that they are going to sell) 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 before I can sell my program to anyone ($25.00 for each of the first 100 copies I will sell) 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 for royalties when they don't publicize it? Steve Westfall uucp: ihnp4!gargoyle!west Infotronx, Inc. 159 W. Roosevelt Rd. Phone: 312-231-6054 (ofc) West Chicago, IL 60185