From: cmetz@thor.tjhsst.edu (Craig Metz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: (none)
Date: 13 Sep 1992 21:17:55 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

> I wonder how many non-disclosure agreements you've read before.  I've
> not read this one in particular, but from your description it sounds
> pretty typical.  The idea of the agreement is to give MV complete
> control over the use of the information while still allowing you
> to /develop/ software for the PAS.  That's the first step.  Once
> you decide to /market/ your software, you have to negotiate a further
> agreement with them.

        To quote from the agreement:

        "Recipient will use MVI Confidential Information solely to
evaluate the commercial potential of a business relationship with MVI."

        Staying within the terms of this agreement, you'd have to
negotiate just to go to the development phase.

> It is in their interest to have you develop software for the PAS, and
> to market it.  But it is also in their interest to control just who
> gets programming information.  They already claim to have been stung by
> Creative Lab's placing a logic bomb in the SoundBlaster development
> library that detects a PAS and "malfunctions."

        There's a difference: You and I can both call an 800-number, read
off a credit card number and give them an address, and in a week we'll have
a full SDK for the Sound Blaster that includes the full right to do whatever
the heck we want to with the information contained in it short of giving out
copies of the SDK to other people.

> Agreed, the agreement pretty much nukes the idea of creating
> distributable sourcecode or libraries.  And I don't like this any more
> than you do.  But it doesn't sound like the agreement prevents you from
> developing software for personal use--after all, they can't require
> that your "development" go into the marketing phase.  And the business
> about them being able to require you to destroy any information or
> software based on that information is simply an enforcement mechanism
> that any business lawyer worth his salt would write into such an
> agreement.  The chance of them invoking it, assuming you stick to the
> rest of the agreement, is probably close to zero.

        Still, it's there. They probably said that about AT&T's "methods and
concepts" phrase, too.

> Personally, I'd prefer no non-disclosure agreements at all, and sale
> of programming information to all comers at a reasonable price.  But
> given that MV has decided to play the non-disclosure game, I don't
> see anything wrong with the way they are playing it.
>
> In other words, I think that complaining that the agreement is too
> restrictive is barking up the wrong tree.

        I'm not just complaining that they do it by nondisclusure - it's
that they advertise in their press releases that they are openly giving this
information to whomever asks, and the reality of the situation is a very
restrictive nondisclosure system that discourages the hobbyist from supporting
their products. I bought one of their cards with the sole intent for using it
for programming - I do research which involved sound processing, but I also do
just general hobbyist programming and every once and a while release something
I've written to friends and such - and was under the impression that it would
be a breeze to get the SDK from them so I could go and do just that. Instead,
there's no way for me to do so reasonably. The legal fees alone in making sure
that I'm not doing anything stupid in signing something (given the current
lawyer-happy era, I can't afford to mess around with such things) make pursuing
supporting the PAS 16 cards in anything I write not worth the time, effort, or
money.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard