Hello,
Keil support did not reply yet - but am I correct in assuming that RL-ARM is now a part of MDK, and that each user needs to have a RL-ARM license paid for separately in order to be able to use FlashFS/TCPNet etc. (many samples in MDK 4.20 are broken, but the one that I did manage to compile failed to link complaining that my license is insufficient - that did not happen with MDK 4.14 !) ? If so, this is a HUGE expense. If my boss asks for my opinion (and I think he will) - we're going open source!
Marc,
Here is an excerpt of a email to marketing - hopefully it clarifies everything:
"It really comes down to this: the more licenses a company needs, the less interesting it is to remain using your networking and file system libraries. Why? It is quite simple, really: You charge the price of these libraries as part of the IDE, and one cannot even build an existing application on his computer unless he has a license (thus, downgrading to a non-pro MDK is not an option at all!). This is a sharp contrast to the way it is done by others which sell these components separately. For example, I can ask some software provider for a quote regarding a TCP/IP library. That provider might ask, say, 10000 euro. Once acquired everybody will be able to use it simply by linking with it. Your solution has its own merit, but cost effectiveness is not one of them, I’m afraid. Surely you can see that once the number of licenses grows (it is expected to grow here too, but we really need to think well before we do that given the costs and maintenance) it is becoming less and less interesting to use MDK-pro."