I think your "normal way" makes sense for non-lawyers, and if possible, contact them. Labeling/Selling a changed version as "your" report writer without clear contract would be a dangerous no-no in my (irrelevant) take on things. Even if such a contract exists, trouble might come later, if the SE license gets a new owner and they interpret the words of the contract(s) different from you and the previous owner.

But as vfp has many ways to skin problems, if they cannot be contacted, create a separate source where all the needed changes are done (using vfp shadowing mechanisms like procs with same name or child objects with some overwritten or added methods where necessary and sell that as an enhancement of the strategic edge product - as that is clearly your brain child. "Vinitsky Tools for Strategic Edge" is difficult to classify as a "competing product". But in light of the previous it might be prudent to go belt and suspenders: try to contact them about a plan to sell your tools for the base product ;-)

If your typical customer gets not only compiled versions, but sources as well, the tools approach IMO lifts the burden of much of contract checking to make certain that your customer is not using your enhancements without owning a license of the base product if they decide to write/maintain themselves.

IANAL, so just my 0.000000000000000000002€

thomas

>It is already written; QM comes with source. (Stonefield is a great product, but out of our price range for this.) We want to include it with some other projects, with our changes, labeled as our report writer.
>
>The license says you can include it in an app, but you cannot create anything that could be considered a competing product with the QM itself. Our plans border on that a little, so normally I would contact the authors and clarify what they are comfortable with that upholds the license terms. But here that is a problem.
>
>>>Years ago Strategic Edge sold a FP product called Query Maker. They are no longer in business it seems, and I have a license question. Compounding the problem is that Hallogram still offers it for sale (!) and claims they send royalties, but would not tell me to where or whom. OTOH, they could be being disingenuous.
>>>
>>>Anybody know anything?
>>
>>I have some OLD contact info - no idea if it's any good.
>>
>> Strategic Edge
>> 2062 Union St. Suite 300
>>San Francisco, California 94123
>>415-563-3755
>>
>>Is this something you already have written and that's why you want to use Query Maker? If not you might want to check into http://www.stonefieldsoftware.com/