You are kidding, right? I'd say 200+ customers and using it as a basis for his own projects is anything but the wasted time you're implying. The fact a sale occurred suggests that there's no interest in further support of it outside of whatever he's contractually obligated to do at BFG.
But thanks for commenting on bits and pieces of my post without reading it in it's entire context. The point wasn't really a matter of "can he do it", but "should he have done it".
Monetary gain is one thing. And I'll be the first person to agree with you that someone should be rightfully compensated for their work.
But you have to be really careful about weighing the value of money against the value of trust and potential damage to relationships you've built with the peers in a community that assisted in the development of the product you've created, in a public domain sense or otherwise.
It's a sticky subject. If I were in his shoes, I'd have personally chosen a different fate for it. But I'm not him. He did what he did. And now he might have consequences (not necessarily legal) as a result.
If it were the same terms of this sale, then all current owners of BMax would be free to continue to use the product as they do now. Even the forums would stay open.
I'm quite certain that if BFG decided to sue anyone for using the framework, they'd win one way or another regardless of any licensing arrangements made. The real world usually isn't about who's right or who's wrong in court.. but who's got the most money and patience to back their litigation. If it's BFG vs joe indie developer, I'd bet on BFG everytime. Even if the indie developer were to win on principle, they'd be buried by the legal fees and NEVER recoup those costs against the game they were trying to sell. Releasing this as an open-source project would have certainly protected his existing customers in this respect.
I'm not saying that this is the course of action that BFG would take, but I've seen it happen before.
But thanks for commenting on bits and pieces of my post without reading it in it's entire context. The point wasn't really a matter of "can he do it", but "should he have done it".
Monetary gain is one thing. And I'll be the first person to agree with you that someone should be rightfully compensated for their work.
But you have to be really careful about weighing the value of money against the value of trust and potential damage to relationships you've built with the peers in a community that assisted in the development of the product you've created, in a public domain sense or otherwise.
It's a sticky subject. If I were in his shoes, I'd have personally chosen a different fate for it. But I'm not him. He did what he did. And now he might have consequences (not necessarily legal) as a result.
If it were the same terms of this sale, then all current owners of BMax would be free to continue to use the product as they do now. Even the forums would stay open.
I'm quite certain that if BFG decided to sue anyone for using the framework, they'd win one way or another regardless of any licensing arrangements made. The real world usually isn't about who's right or who's wrong in court.. but who's got the most money and patience to back their litigation. If it's BFG vs joe indie developer, I'd bet on BFG everytime. Even if the indie developer were to win on principle, they'd be buried by the legal fees and NEVER recoup those costs against the game they were trying to sell. Releasing this as an open-source project would have certainly protected his existing customers in this respect.
I'm not saying that this is the course of action that BFG would take, but I've seen it happen before.