Posted by Peter Kenny-2 on Jul 13, 2004; 10:43am
URL: https://forum.world.st/Distributing-a-prototype-Dolphin-app-tp3370977.html

My Dolphin app is coming on well, and is nearing the point at which I would
like to demonstrate a prototype to potential users. I would like to clear up
a number of points, both technical and copyright issues, which will affect
how I do it. I would be glad of any advice, either from OA or from users who
have done something similar.

First thing is that I am still working with DVE, and using STB as a storage
vehicle between sessions. If I do get to the point of developing and
distributing a fully working system which can scale to real life situations,
I envisage upgrading to Dolphin Pro and using OmniBase as the storage
vehicle, so that I will distribute a fully stripped and packaged program.
However, getting Dolphin Pro and OmniBase will cost me $500 plus tax, and I
would prefer not to do that until I am surer of the market.

The first chance to demonstrate will come at conference next month, which is
on the other side of the Atlantic. I do not envisage lugging my own laptop
across, so I shall have a PowerPoint presentation on CD which I can run on a
borrowed machine. The ideal setup would be to have the Dolphin app on the
same CD, arranged so that it can run direct from the CD without any
installation on the host machine. At first sight this looks feasible, except
that Dolphin seems to expect to find components in specific locations such
as under c:\Program Files. Can it be set up to find the DLLs on  the CD? If
not, what is the minimum amount of installation I would have to do? Under
this scenario, the image would be the full Dolphin image, with no stripping,
but with a runtime session manager which boots straight into my app.
However, this would be for use only by me as a vehicle for demonstration,
not for distribution to others. As I understand it the Dolphin licence is
per user, not per machine, so I do not see any copyright issues.

However, the next stage could be to distribute copies of the prototype
program for investigation and comment by potential users. If the first
reactions are favourable there might be several cycles of prototyping and
feedback. So the question is how can I, with minimum effort and hassle, turn
my DVE image into something I can distribute without infringing Dolphin
copyright. At first sight, I thought of removing the three packages which
appear under the IDE folder in the Package Browser. That, coupled with the
runtime session manager, should ensure that nobody can  use the distributed
code to develop Smalltalk programs, which is the obvious limitation to
impose. Is this sufficient, or should I remove anything else? This is
covered rather sketchily in the Dolphin 4 help, but I would like to get more
detail. Is there any other material available? (I realised eventually that I
could not use the Package Browser to remove the packages, since it would try
to remove itself. I presume I can arrange to have them removed
programmatically the first time the runtime session manager executes.) The
obvious way to do this is also as a ready-to-run CD, with no installation; I
don't have time to master installers between now and the conference.

Just to emphasise I am not trying to get round Dolphin copyright in any way.
I want to do this at minimum cost and risk to myself, but I want to do it
legally, so I am setting out all the issues up front before I start
preparing for the conference.

Grateful for any comments or advice.

Peter Kenny