What NI said to me about scripting

[jhoskins]

This is a copy of an e-mail I got back from NI when I asked them why they removed my post from the forum. Just thought I would share this little bit of information with you all.

Hi Joe,

This is a good question you posed. As you mentioned, there are other unsupported features and technologies that are discussed on our Discussion Forums. However, VI scripting is different in one significant way. Though it is currently unlicensed (because it's not a complete product), it will soon become a licensed technology, meaning that it must be purchased just like other software. It is in beta right now so it's not being sold yet but, in its final form, it will be a fully licensed product just like the LabVIEW Development System, Application Builder, Report Generation Toolkit, etc. Therefore, to share this technology is to break the licensing and/or Nondisclosure agreements. That is why we remove these posts from our website. Thanks for your understanding in this. If you have any other questions about this, feel free to respond anytime. Best regards,

J.R. Allen

----- Forwarded by Molly Koester on 06/22/2005 12:44 PM ----- Joseph Hoskins

06/22/2005 12:40 PM

To

Molly Koester

cc

Subject

Re: Post in the NI Discussion Forums

That is OK Molly, I pretty much knew that it would get removed. No hard

feelings to you or NI, I still love the forums. Just one question why can

we not post that type of thing, there are a lot of things that posted that

NI does not support, never will support, and will probably change in the

future that will cause programs to break when upgraded. I just wanted to

let people know that these things are out there.

Thanks anyway

Joe Hoskins

[m3nth]

Well well... that's quite the bit of news. I wonder if it will be concurrent with the release of version 8?

Thanks for posting! :thumbup:

[m3nth]

Therefore, to share this technology is to break the licensing and/or Nondisclosure agreements.

5097[/snapback]

I had an afterthought on this particular sentence... What exactly does it mean? Or more correctly, what _will_ it mean?

- Once scripting is supported, will people be able to ask scripting questions on the NI Forum? (I would think so)

- Would they be able to post their scripting code? (I would think so)

- Would that violate their licensing and/or nondisclosure agreements? (If the forums are open for that then I would think not)

- Would other people be able to download their code? (I would think so... but who knows...)

- If other people who don't have a scripting license (or whatever it is you'll have to buy) can download scripting code, will it run correctly?

- If it runs correctly and the block diagram wasn't locked, could it be edited?

- If it could be edited without a scripting license then that would mean you don't have to have a scripting license to script? How does that work??

- What about previously scripted code in version 7.1... will it be blocked?

- What if the world ends tomorrow???

Ok anyway... just a few things that make my head go into a no-wait do-loop

[jhoskins]

I dug through the licensing agreement and found nothing stated like this person said about breaking the agreement. I just wanted to get the opinion from the experts here. And another thing is he not already breaking that agreement by letting me know that it is going to be a product soon. HMM Maybe I need to buy some NI stock now that I have a trade secret.

[PJM_labview]

Therefore, to share this technology is to break the licensing and/or Nondisclosure agreements.

This is quite a "weird" statement that we got there.

Using code left exposed by NI cannot be consider a breach of the license agreement or even a breach of an NDA, since NI left the foundation of scripting functionalities exposed in shipping products. These exposed functions allow access to a lot (all?) of the scripting API. Therefore, the scripting capabilities are cover by the license agreement in the product which they are exposed.

Personnaly I more than once though that the exposed scripting functions were left there on purpose (there was so many of them) for us to experiment with and I was not surprised reading some posting from NI in info labview that were encouraging us to explore the scripting functionalities.

Just my 2 cents

PJM

[m3nth]

I was not surprised reading some posting from NI in info labview that were encouraging us to explore the scripting functionalities.

5103[/snapback]

Well, here's how it adds up in my book: No interest = No $$$. A faithful following of people who are tantalized with their products will go a long way when they start selling something that they have generated interest in.

[jhoskins]

I just want know when it is going to be released. I want it, although it will probably be about 4G's for something that should be free.

[i2dx]

- If it runs correctly and the block diagram wasn't locked, could it be edited?

- If it could be edited without a scripting license then that would mean you don't have to have a scripting license to script?  How does that work??

- What about previously scripted code in version 7.1... will it be blocked? 

- What if the world ends tomorrow???

Ok anyway... just a few things that make my head go into a no-wait do-loop 

5099[/snapback]

the same question is:

you can buy a toolset from NI which helps you to develop some things faster ...

you can save a complete VI hierarchy and include all VI'S from the VI-Lib (which means, including the toolset-vis, too) and distribute this to a colleague who has not bought the toolset ...

is this a breach of the license agreement?

i think VI-Scripting will be available as a toolset ... so ni can make some extra $$$