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Technically, there are some specific issues when dealing with The Raiser's Edgeｮ (RE). You can develop a methodology based on standard RE imports, which are part of the front-end of the application. This approach lacks elegance, but it works and it is covered under Blackbaud technical support. Legally developing a fully-automated integration requires the purchase of the Blackbaud API. Writing directly to the back-end of the software without the API may violate the terms of your service agreement. If you do pay the $15,000 for the API, make sure that a good intellectual property attorney reviews the API contract (all software contracts actually), as it seems to indicate that Blackbaud retains ownership of all intellectual property created using the toolset.
Check out the source URL to read the question posed to which this was the response.
The question I'd like to put out there over the Blackbus PA system is: What are the merits of this statement regarding the interpretation of the ToS agreement for the RE API and the implied intellectual property encumbrances potential?
My shop does not currently use/contract the API, so it's not a bridge we've crossed yet. Others?
However, it states that the readership can write to "Ask Idealware" ( Idealware: Candid Information about Nonprofit Software) with questions; this was an answer to an audience question. There's some link between personaldemocracy.com and idealware.org , but what's the nature of that relationship, and what's the overall context here. Also, when was the question submitted? and How long ago did the poster do the research?
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Technical white paper
Hi -- I found a technical white paper on RE, and it did indeed state that if you did not use the API, then you were violating your service contract and would no longer be supported by BB. So, no more using programming to do any inserts/deletes/updates on info through sql, thought I. And, you think you're getting a bargain on this software, but then to really leverage it, you've got to pay and pay and...well, you get the picture. That's the way it seems to me now, before I've actually jumped into the pool. Maybe it's not that way in real life, but it's looking like it now.
You know I have created multiple plugins that are given away for free in full knowledge of senior executives (in fact they have encouraged me) and there has been no requirement to have the API. Indeed Blackbaud have plugins for download and they do not require their own clients to have the API. If it were a requirement then you could (and they probably would) program in such a restriction so whether it was at one time official policy it certainly isn't now
You know I have created multiple plugins that are given away for free in full knowledge of senior executives (in fact they have encouraged me) and there has been no requirement to have the API. Indeed Blackbaud have plugins for download and they do not require their own clients to have the API. If it were a requirement then you could (and they probably would) program in such a restriction so whether it was at one time official policy it certainly isn't now
You know I have created multiple plugins that are given away for free in full knowledge of senior executives (in fact they have encouraged me) and there has been no requirement to have the API. Indeed Blackbaud have plugins for download and they do not require their own clients to have the API. If it were a requirement then you could (and they probably would) program in such a restriction so whether it was at one time official policy it certainly isn't now
David
Thats what I was getting at. It seems that the initial statement doesn't fit with everything that I have heard from and talked to Blackbaud about.
We need to be aware of two different issues here. The original article makes two different claims:
It's impossible, or at least it invalidates your service agreement, to write customisations for RE without paying for the Blackbaud API
If you do pay for the API, any customisations that you write with it become the intellectual property of Blackbaud
We know the first of these to be incorrect - it's perfectly possible, and within the terms of the licence, to create plugins (though not to directly update the database through SQL) without using the API.
The second issue is more troubling. Does anyone have a copy of the API licence which they could check? It may be that this is a right which Blackbaud choose not to enforce at the moment, but it would be worrying if we were to spend a large amount of money paying a developer to write us a customisation using the API, only for Blackbaud to turn around and say, "thanks, that's our property now, and we're going to start giving away that same customisation to all our other clients".
__________________ Simon Koppel
Senior Database Executive
Cancer Research UK
London, England www.cancer.org.uk
I have not seen the API contract so I cannot give you a definitive answer. However there are so many precedents set that would contradict such a clause. Just look at all the code that people write for Microsoft Office products. Access, Excel, Word and others all use VBA and all can be called in a similar way to how the API works. Nobody is suggesting that these types of applications could possibly belong to Microsoft.
It is also a question of how you write applications such as these. Blackbaud, Microsoft, whoever supply an API, an interface to their code. You are writing your own code that you have rights over against their interface. You are not writing or editing their code.
Of course laws vary between countries and so do contracts but I would have real difficulty in believing that Blackbaud would have any right to my code or my client's code.
If You or a third party on your behalf creates an application or modification using the Blackbaud Tools, You shall only have title to such modification that remains after the Blackbaud Tools are separated from the modification. You hereby grant to Blackbaud a perpetual, royalty free, transferable license to use any application or modification created by you or a third party on your behalf using the Blackbaud Tools.
The "tools" are defined as
Quote:
the Application Programming Interface (API or Visual Basic Application VBA contained in the Software
I think an interesting legal (and perhaps even technical) question here is whether or not creating a plugin is using the API. It certainly uses the API, but does the term API used in the contract refer to the purchased API license and SDK, or the exposed API (object model, etc) that is utilized by the plugin. I would lean towards the former of those, but I'm sure a sharp lawyer could take it either way.
Update: The date on that doc is 1/8/03, so you may want to refer to your organization's actual contract.
