Question

I just started a project with the newly release Sencha Designer Beta, and I was researching the free commercial license. Someone pointed out on a blog post comment that the 11. Support and Updates section of the license agreement is very restrictive and deceptive. After reading this section, I cannot fully understand it, as I have little experience in interpreting software license agreements.

Can anyone decode this for me in terms of what it really means about receiving updates to the Sencha Touch framework and what is means for someone who is creating an end-user mobile app?

11 . SUPPORT AND UPDATES

You are not entitled to any support for the Software under this
Agreement. All support must be purchased separately and will be
subject to the terms and conditions contained in the Sencha support
agreement. You are entitled to receive minor version updates to the
Software (i.e. versions identified as follows (X.Y, X.Y+1). You are
not entitled to receive major version updates (i.e. X.Y, X+1.Y) or bug
fix updates to the Software (X.Y.Z, X.Y.Z+1). Major version updates
and bug fix updates to the Software are available separately for
purchase.

I’m fully clear on the fact that you have to pay for support, but not about the availability of updates. When they release updated versions of the framework, how does this prevent someone from just updating their packages? What are the hidden pitfalls here? As long as we aren’t directly requesting bug fixes and support, what in this text would prevent me from just downloading and updating my local framework to the latest release?

Here is a link to the blog post which contains the comment that caused me confusion on the matter: http://mobile.dzone.com/articles/sencha-touch-or-jquery-mobile

Please note that I do not endorse the view taken by this blog comment. I am only linking for the reason that it brought my questions to the surface.

Answer 1

As the person who wrote much of that text – originally for our Ext JS license – I can tell you that the intent was not to be deceptive, but some of the text doesn’t make sense when it’s applied to a free license like the Sencha Touch developer license (and legalese can be read with the wrong tone)

Here’s what it means.

• You’ve just downloaded version 1.0 of the software, good for you
• You’re entitled to get version 1.1, and 1.2, and 1.3 as well if and when we ship them
• You’re not entitled to get version 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3 (if and when we ship them) – that’s a benefit just for our technical support subscribers
• You’re not entitled to file technical support tickets either.

Does that make sense?

(Incidentally, I am a little upset by the implications of the comment in the post you linked and will reply to it now. Our support subscribers allow us to pay for developers to develop patches, which then we make available only to our support subscribers. All patches are rolled into the next minor release.)