Wolf Rider, thanks for the excellent large amount of information concerning some of NaturalPoint's positions.
From what I understand from skim/reading through these last posts, NaturalPoint was first objecting that FreeTrack used NP code in it's distribution. That is a fair argument considering today's silly laws.
But then if FreeTrack does not distribute their code, and only uses whatever is available from the softwares installed on a user's computer, I do not think there is any fair claim of foul play. Users can do what they want with their software and hardware as far as I am concerned.
If I write a program that can talk with games that use NaturalPoint-made API's and play games like that with headtracking, it is completely absurd if they said "no, you have to pay us 270 dollars to play the game you bought in that way". It is none of their business. I will supply analogies:
- Not allowing people who don't buy Adidas latest shoes to interface with (play) a basketball game - that they bought, because Adidas is a sponsor of that game.
- Not allowing people who are of asian ethnicity to play a game, because sponsors of that game don't think asians should be allowed to have fun with that game (that they bought) (yes maybe racist, but it's the concept that counts here, not the other details).
- Not allowing someone to go to the bathroom because some 'license' involved in buying a game said so.
It's all BS nonsense. Licenses try to replace the concept of owning what you buy, to ridiculous levels. If NP are scared someone will make use of software distributed freely, for their own non-commercial purposes, then they should require three different dongles, invasive anti-use malware and require one to be online at all times to do anything with the code they made (constant checking hardware so that no webcam etc is connected) - or just not distribute it at all and keep it to themselves.