Did you actually read what I wrote? Look at it. I said that it would work it he used the whole half page.
Did you actually read what Tom Swiss wrote? To wit: "Dude, what's all this `To be or not to be' speech?"
That's "speech", as in "a WHOLE Goddamn SPEECH", numbskull.
Like I said, I was being a bitch.
Who gives a fuck what you say you're being, when you actually are being something else?
Not in the context that I was being picky, but in the context that I was not really all that serious about what I said.
Then why the fuck whould we take your claims as to what you "are being" seriously?
The "context" here is, in fact, neither that you are being "picky" nor that you are being more or less "serious" about what you say, but that you are being just plain WRONG.
So do us all -- including your parents, probably -- a favour drop dead, fuckwit.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Jon Robertson (Hey, the name sounds familiar...?) writes:
As long as you distribute that application under the terms of Borland's license.
Exactly.
Which is what I said he should do: Distribute his source code that refers to the VCL, and his application where it is linked in. The latter is obviously legal because that is what the Delphi license is for, and the former is obviously legal because it is HIS source code. Or are you saying that the words "uses Forms, Controls, StdCtls;" automatically make every file they occur in owned by Borland?!? (And people say the GPL is "viral"...;^) Now that I've written them, does Borland own this post?
Borland owns the VCL. Borland's license gives Developer's [sic] the right to distribute the VCL in compiled form.
Which is exactly what he would do. That's covered by his license (if he has one; i.e, unless he's using a cover CD freebie). His distributing HIS source code to HIS application has nothing to do with that. Not with Borland's license -- but it would allow him to use the GPL.
However, by distributing compiled VCL code under the GNU GPL, the entire VCL (including source) becomes affected by the GNU GPL.
No it doesn't. This is just plain not so -- and if you don't want to take my word for it, it seems Charlie Calvert (and Borland in general) agree with my reading.
That is not only a violation of Borland's license, but it is also a violation of the copyright law.
That's just plain wrong.
Long-time opponent of the GNU GPL in a Delphi world
So is that...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Jon Robertson (I could swear I read a good article by you somewhere recently...?) writes:
No, but if he distributes an executable, under the GNU GPL, with the VCL code linked in, then he is releasing the VCL under the GNU GPL, even if he doesn't release VCL source.
Where do you get that from?!? Pulling it straight out of your ass, or been reading too much Brett Glass? It is absolutely NOT SO.
And regardless of the legality of the GNU GPL, that is copyright infringement. You are giving Borland's code away without their permission.
Bull, Jon, plain and simple.
If he has a Delphi license, he has the right to give away VCL code linked into his applications. I didn't say he should give away VCL source -- actually, I said he should not, and that he didn't have to, even in order to comply with the GPL.
So he can comply with both licenses at the same time -- Borland's, for using Delphi, and the GPL, under which he licenses his application.
Long-time opponent of GNU GPL in a Delphi world
That's too sad.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Delphi is an IDE for Object Pascal, Borland's mutilated child of Pascal.
There's two letters too much in your "mutilated" -- 'i' and 'l'...
Sure, it's mutated quite a lot from Wirth's original. But remember, mutations are what drives evolution forward!
There are open-source Pascal environments that support many of Delphi's features.
Yes, there are. And I'm sure they're fine languages.
But does the fact that they don't support all of Delphi's features somehow make them better? Less "mutilated"?!?
Delphi is a nice tool for slapping together a UI, but it really gets in the way for designing deeply involved programs.
Huh?!?
Why? How? Is it just that you don't know how to use it, or what?
If you don't like the IDE and/or its editor, you could always use Notepad and the command-line compiler, you know... If that is what you see as "not getting in the way".
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
[Borland's license]
prevents open sourcing and/or copyleft, because any code will rely on their component library.
No, I don't think it does.
Sure, you can't distribute the VCL source code they give you -- but then you don't have to, because you only use it; you don't modify it. And the people you distribute your source code to -- the ones that particiapte in the development, that is -- have their own copies of the VCL source (or just the compiled and ready-to-link object code, if they have the cheapest version of Delphi). So they can use your source that refers to the VCL, even without your distributing any VCL source.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
if I write a program in vis basic [...] and gave it away for free.. I would also have to distribute say vbrun5.dll with it or the program is worthless... though I am not charging for vbrun.dll I do not think I would be infringing on any copyright's
Well, that depends on whether you have been given the right to distribute it by those who hold the copyright on it.
Usually, that would mean if you have bought a license for Visual Basic... (In practice, I think Microsoft lets anyone distribute its run-time DLLs; they reckon that can only help VB's market penetration, I suppose.) But, my point is, that's their decision -- it has nothing to do with what you are charging for anything.
If however I was selling the program, and distributing vbrun.dll along with it i would think that is closer to copyright infringment.
I don't think that has anything to do with it.
The issue of whether you can distribute VBRUNxxx.DLL or not is between you, the developer, and the copyright holder of the run-time library; i.e, Microsoft. It has nothing to do with what kind of payment, if any, is transferred between you and your clients / customers. Aren't you saying, in effect, that there could be no legal sold-for-money programs written in Visual Basic ??? I'm fairly sure there are...
it may ease your mind to know that I have abso-friggin-lutely no idea what delphi is.
Well, no, that does not "ease my mind". Sigh... Don't you think you ought to find out what the heck you're talking about, before you go running off at the mouth?
OK, here goes: Delphi is a commercial compiler-and-IDE package from Borland; the great-great(-great-great...)-grandchild of Turbo Pascal. The language, now called Object Pascal, is considerably extended beyond ANSI- and ISO-Standard Pascal, and absolutely on a par with C++. The IDE is at least as easy and powerful as Visual Basic, and the powerful Visual Component Library is what makes it all work.
A few years ago, Borland used the slogan "As easy as Visual Basic, as powerful as C++!" -- and it was actually true!
but if something is free I dont see how it can be copyright infringed.. especially if i am not making a profit.
So if I break into a warehouse and steal a hundred VCRs and sell them, that's illegal -- but if I give them away for free, that's OK??? Sure, I liked reading about Robin Hood and his merry men in the Sherwood Forest when I was a kid, too... But still, whether it is legal for me to sell or give something away depends not so much on which of those it is I'm doing, as on whether it was mine to give away (or sell) in the first place.
And, just to make it perfectly clear: In this context, that means I can not give away copies of Delphi (including VCL source code), because Borland owns the rights to that. But I can give away the applications I write in it, because that's my source code (and Borland grants me the right to link objects from its VCL library into my apps; that's a large part of what I pay my license for).
please sir, show me the light so that I may correct the error of my ways
OK, done. Hope it helps...:-)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
And people who don't have Delphi at all couldn't, of course, participate in his project. Too bad, but that's just the way it is.
Fortunately, what you can do is run -- don't walk, run! -- out and buy this month's issue of British mag PC Plus: It has Delphi 3 Professional on the cover CD! An unbelievable value, at just $16 (or was it $14?) US. Their Web site is athttp://www.pcplus.co.uk IIRC.
Sure, it has one of those freebie trial licenses (Borland are just being generous, they're not completely crazy!:-) that says something like: "You can't distribute the applications you build in this copy of Delphi at all."
But that's actually not too big a problem, if you're getting it just to participate in projects like this: If I remember correctly, the license doesn't say anything about distributing source code you've built in it... ("Distributing" it back to the maintainers of Open Source projects, for instance, who presumably have fully-licensed commercial copies of Delphi, and thus can distribute whatever they like however they like!:-)
Copyright infringement could potentially damage the reputation of both the lead maintainer, and anyone else involve (not to mention legal suits if copyrighted units are distributed).
But that has nothing to do with the open-source nature of this project, per se.
I'm sure there are many thousands of pirated copies of, say, Microsoft "Visual" (Ha!) C++ in use, too -- among commercial, as well as free- and shareware authors. But that is not in any way an issue that has anything to do with the advantages and disadvantages of their respective business models.
Now, if you were to write the whole thing from scratch (no vcl, no pre-manufactured units), you'd A) be wasting lots of time and B) be fully legal to distribute under anything you wanted.
That would also be utterly idiotic.
Your "no VCL" requirement is totally bogus and superfluous. Linking the object framework into your applications is perfectly legal, no matter how you distribute them or whether you're being paid for them or not. (OK, distributing those applications is not, if you're using a magazine-freebie copy of the IDE.) That's what it's for, you know.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
You couldn't use the GPL, because your project would involve some part of the VCL most likely (TForm comes to mind), and that's copyrighted.
What are you babbling about?!?
He doesn't have to distribute the source of TForm or other VCL objects! The developers who could be eligible to participate -- those who have Delphi -- already have that. And each of them linking that into their projects when compiling is perfectly legal too: We can already give away source-less "free-as-in-beer" apps built on the VCL -- that freedom is basically what we pay for when we buy Delphi. And the source code we write from scratch, that only refers to Borland's VCL units (i.e, tells the IDE to link them in), is of course ours to do whatever we like with; how the heck could Borland's copyrights cover that?
You could try the Artistic license, or XFree86, or hang it all out and go BSD, which would likely have no problems with the VCL copyrights, or any other component copyrights for that matter, but then you lose any possibility of control.
Huh?!?
If including Borland's VCL were a problem with the somewhat-restricted GPL, how the heck could it be any less of a problem with the totally free-for-all BSD licenses? And what would be the benefit of his "hang[ing] it all out and go[ing] BSD" -- except that that would make it perfectly legal for some sleazeball "entrepreneur" to hijack his code base, close it off, and start selling a "competing" copy of his work?
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe any of these concerns apply to Delphi. Isn't Delphi a proprietary Inprise/Borland language with only one implementation? I could be all wrong here, but if memory serves that is the case...
Yup.
But so what; it means relatively fewer people will be able to participate in development (i.e, only those who have bought Delphi) than would be in a gcc project on Linux, but that's all. And FWIW, I think the Delphi community is among the most open-source-friendly bunches of folks you can find in the Windows world. Hey, you've got this guy asking here...
I also seem to remember reading they were considering porting it to linux at some point in the future.
The future is NOW!:-)
Well, depends on what you mean by "porting": it isn't quite here *yet* (neither the port nor, thus, the future), but they *are* busy porting it right at this moment. Expected release some time mid-year.
That reminds me: In stead of wasting my time here at work, surfing Slashdot after hours, I should go home and install Linux on my new PC so I can try to wheedle on to the beta program...:-)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
There's no reason to think that Borland's RAD IDE could not be ported to work with GCC.
Yes there is: GCC probably lacks Borland's proprietary extended-C++ keyword _property, don't you think?
The IDE is essentially the same with C++ Builder, and that works just fine as a C++ frontend.
"Frontend"?!? C++ Builder is no mere "frontend", AFAICS: It's integrated [TM Microsoft...;^] with the compiler; it depends on the _property keyword, can't work its magic without it.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Nuggz" quotes "Ebbv": >i don't think they were all that vague.
and replies: "I don't think this statement is very specific"
If your attention span could stretch more than one full stop back, you'd see that it was a direct reply to your earlier sentence:
"Vague allusions to the quality of my post really don't prove anything, and are just useful for distraction."
There is one thing there that you used the very word "vague" about: Allusions to the quality of [your] post.
What he is saying is, in effect: "My allusions to the quality of your post weren't vague".
Of course, that you "don't think this statement is very specific" only goes to show he's right: The quality of your posts really does suck.
(And that is, ironically, probably yet another example of the failure of that public school system you're a product of, and so misguidedly eager to defend. Especially misguided since you only managed to expose it all the more in the process.)
HTH!
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
I think people who don't want release their code before it's finished shouldn't.
But since having the source code to something that is "finished" is inherently meaningless, people like that have nothing at all to do with what the "Open Source community" is all about, do they?
And I don't think the Open Source community needs people with a gimme, gimme, gimme attitude.
Well, it sure doesn't need hypocrites who won't release their source, either.
What's so "Open Source community" about not releasing your source???
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
He didn't say noone could. But for anyone who can, and takes the time to figure it out, there will be hundreds of requests for help.
Yeah, well... So what?
He can just ignore them, and call the people asking for help "asses", can't he?
Just like he does now, with those who ask for the source code...
Eh, who says that OpenSource means "release something that isn't finished"? Is there someone like RMS, ESR or Bruce Perens claiming that you have to release unfinished products? I don't think so.
Eh, who says that OpenSource means "release only something that is finished"? Is there someone like RMS, ESR or Bruce Perens claiming that you have to release finished products? I don't think so.
Would you consider Linux "finished", for example? No? Well, it's "more finished" now than it was when it was released, isn't it? And, hey -- isn't all this talk about the benefits of open source based on the theory that Linux is "more finished" now than it was when it was released, because it was released?
Where do you think Linux would be now, if it hadn't been released back when it was a lot "less finished"?
Your attitude belongs more to the gimme, gimme, gimme warez-kiddies than it belongs to the Open Source movement.
No, on the contrary -- it is your attitude that looks like it belongs more to a pay me, pay me, pay me closed-source software vendor than it belongs to the Open Source movement.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christopher B. Brown writes: "Borland didn't actually own much of the software that they used to sell; they were essentially reselling software produced by other companies."
Actually, I think they did/do own the code.
It's just that for products they discontinued, they sold it -- sometimes to third parties (Paradox to Corel, dBase to the newly-formed dBase, Inc), and sometimes back to the original owner they'd bought it from.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Read: Were agressively, and possibly illegaly, head-hunted by Microsoft...
(cfr. J++, made by a former Borlandie if memory serves).
You're thinking of Anders Hejlsberg, the man behind Turbo Pascal and Delphi. But no, I think "J++" was already released when he was poached by, eh, Brad Silverberg IIRC. Now, this "COOL" thingy, on the other hand...
At least that were the reports around the time.
I think my account is closer to the reports (and speculations) at the time.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
From a corporate perspective, how many of you think that this could really be a profitable move for Inprise?
I think it could be. I'm not sure how much of this is wishful hinking, though; I'm sure hoping it would.
Will it drive more development tools sales, realistically?
Yes, this is what I'm hoping for. As I said in another post, Interbase isn't "integral" to Borland development tools (in the sense that they wouldn't work without it) -- but it is "integrated", in the sense that it works much better with them than without them... (Now let's just hope not too many notice that this goes equally for many other databases!:-)
Would it build up a good support/services business?
Though I'd like to think so, I'm not so sure: As others have pointed out, InterBase just plain works too well to need much in the way of direct DBA support... But sure, combined InterBase / Delphi support might become more of an issue than it is now.
Will this make you more likely to see Inprise as a major Linux player?
Well, not me -- I'm a Borland fan, so I'm already hoping for that. But I'm hoping it will have this effect on others...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
...handicapped friends, "that's not entirely true".:-)
Martin K writes:
They have an extremely expensive Delphi Client/Server edition whose major claim to fame is the database stuff with Interbase being an integral part.
Delphi C/S is expensive, yes, but I'm not sure if you could justifiedly call it "extremely" expensive.
Be that as it may; where you're more wrong is in the "Interbase being an integral part" claim. Technically, Interbase is (or was up to and including Delphi 4) no more "integral" to Delphi than were/are Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Sewer, Informix, or DB/2. Basically, all you got was SQL Links; BDE-native plug-in drivers for these databases. (Disregarding the MIDAS and Web stuff for the moment, as not everybody uses that.)
And they provided a development-use-only licensed copy of InterBase for you to work with, yes. But the intent of that could just as well be for developing applications that are then deployed on some other RDBMS, as to deploy on InterBase.
As of Delphi 5, they've integrated a set of "InterBase Express" components into Delphi -- from the Professional edition and upwards. But these are just a set of plug-in VCL components; there are other such free- and share-ware VCL collections (this is what IBX started as!) to connect to other RDBMSes, and if you use them, those RDBMSes are just as "integral" to your Delphi set-up as InterBase is. Heck, given that there is also a set of "ADO Express" components, you could just as well say that MS SQL Sewer is "integral" to Delphi...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Open source interbase? Which product? Interbase is just a cs/database. Inprise dont own it.
Yes they do.
They got it (back when they were still called Borland) by buying Ashton-Tate, which was perhaps better known for its dBase product. A couple of years ago they spun it off into its own company, InterBase Corp, ironically coming full circle; it had been a separate company (founded by ex-Digital employees IIRC) before A-T bought it, too.
But InterBase Corp is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inprise; so yes, they do own it.
I know the CEO of IB has basically gone crazy tho:).
I wouldn't know about that. (But I do suspect you're exaggerating.)
They have been beta testing IB v6.0 for ages and suddenly he wants to pull the plug for no reason so all the top ppl at IB left.
I also suspect this is a distortion or over-simplification. For one thing, last I heard, not all the "top ppl at IB left". (Why would that "crazy" CEO leave, for instance, if he's the one driving the others away?)
Interbase is a high end client/server database...
Yup; a competitor to Oracle and DB/2 and MS SQL Sewer and so on. Except for some reason they often call themselves an "embedded" database server (what's that, really -- I thought "embedded" means chips in elevators, and so on?), and perhaps because of that they're often not seen as being as "high end" as other client/server database systems like Oracle and DB/2.
as far as I know Inprise has been given licences to distro it with Delphi..
Given themselves, rather.
but Delphi only contains a 5 user licences in the c/s delphi.
Well of course; that's only sound business reasoning. Sure, they could "give themselves" -- that is, give Delphi customers -- an unlimited redistribution license, but why would they? A five-user license is amply good enough for development work; and if you want to deploy your work on IB, they want you to buy the licenses for your end users (or your end users to buy them for themselves).
I don't think IBM gives away unlimited DB/2 licenses with their VisualAge programming systems either...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"if flmes _are_ a problem, well, they deserve it anyway. NSI has cost this person, and many people like him, a lot of money and inconvenience; they can deal with the slight karmic retribution of having their mail server crash."
Heck, yeah, I couldn't agree more -- in principle.
Only, if they are as incompetent as they seem to be, that mail server is probably also the database server for the registration database itself, so crashing it will cause the exact same kind of problem for even *more* innocent victims!
So IMO y'all should really make that a set of REAL, not metaphorical, pitchforks and torches...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
The "efficiency" of those corporations is irrelevant - the salient point is accountability. Corporations are responsible for their deeds and misdeeds to their stockholders, and to nobody else.
They also have to be nice to their customers - for without their customers they don't earn money.
Eh, hmmm, "I just wish it worked that way..."
We are our government. It is an organization in whose operations we at least have a say - essentially, we are all stockholders.
I just wish it worked that way - but unfortunately it doesn't. The parts of the US government that actually do things are so far away from the people that the population really doesn't have any control over what they do at all.
And the parts of a corporation that actually do the decision-making are so far away from the market that the customer really doesn't have any control over what they do at all. Like, how accountable towards you, personally, do you think that the CEO of Exxon feels he is? More than Clinton?
Geez, what a screwed-up world-view you seem to have: In government, structure means bureaucracy means distance means no influence for the ordinary person -- but in corporations, all those problems somewhow magically go away!
And you think you're being "objective" and unbiased, I take it...?
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Slashdot Mirror
That's "speech", as in "a WHOLE Goddamn SPEECH", numbskull.
Who gives a fuck what you say you're being, when you actually are being something else? Then why the fuck whould we take your claims as to what you "are being" seriously?The "context" here is, in fact, neither that you are being "picky" nor that you are being more or less "serious" about what you say, but that you are being just plain WRONG.
So do us all -- including your parents, probably -- a favour drop dead, fuckwit.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Which is what I said he should do: Distribute his source code that refers to the VCL, and his application where it is linked in. The latter is obviously legal because that is what the Delphi license is for, and the former is obviously legal because it is HIS source code. Or are you saying that the words "uses Forms, Controls, StdCtls;" automatically make every file they occur in owned by Borland?!? (And people say the GPL is "viral"...
Which is exactly what he would do. That's covered by his license (if he has one; i.e, unless he's using a cover CD freebie). His distributing HIS source code to HIS application has nothing to do with that. Not with Borland's license -- but it would allow him to use the GPL.
No it doesn't. This is just plain not so -- and if you don't want to take my word for it, it seems Charlie Calvert (and Borland in general) agree with my reading.
That's just plain wrong.
So is that...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Bull, Jon, plain and simple.
If he has a Delphi license, he has the right to give away VCL code linked into his applications. I didn't say he should give away VCL source -- actually, I said he should not, and that he didn't have to, even in order to comply with the GPL.
So he can comply with both licenses at the same time -- Borland's, for using Delphi, and the GPL, under which he licenses his application.
That's too sad.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Sure, it's mutated quite a lot from Wirth's original. But remember, mutations are what drives evolution forward!
Yes, there are. And I'm sure they're fine languages.
But does the fact that they don't support all of Delphi's features somehow make them better? Less "mutilated"?!?
Huh?!?
Why? How? Is it just that you don't know how to use it, or what?
If you don't like the IDE and/or its editor, you could always use Notepad and the command-line compiler, you know... If that is what you see as "not getting in the way".
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Sure, you can't distribute the VCL source code they give you -- but then you don't have to, because you only use it; you don't modify it. And the people you distribute your source code to -- the ones that particiapte in the development, that is -- have their own copies of the VCL source (or just the compiled and ready-to-link object code, if they have the cheapest version of Delphi). So they can use your source that refers to the VCL, even without your distributing any VCL source.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
...as in, "used IN a commercial distribution" of THIS PROJECT -- not "used ON a commercial distribution of the operating system".
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Usually, that would mean if you have bought a license for Visual Basic... (In practice, I think Microsoft lets anyone distribute its run-time DLLs; they reckon that can only help VB's market penetration, I suppose.) But, my point is, that's their decision -- it has nothing to do with what you are charging for anything.
I don't think that has anything to do with it.
The issue of whether you can distribute VBRUNxxx.DLL or not is between you, the developer, and the copyright holder of the run-time library; i.e, Microsoft. It has nothing to do with what kind of payment, if any, is transferred between you and your clients / customers. Aren't you saying, in effect, that there could be no legal sold-for-money programs written in Visual Basic ??? I'm fairly sure there are...
Well, no, that does not "ease my mind". Sigh... Don't you think you ought to find out what the heck you're talking about, before you go running off at the mouth?
OK, here goes: Delphi is a commercial compiler-and-IDE package from Borland; the great-great(-great-great...)-grandchild of Turbo Pascal. The language, now called Object Pascal, is considerably extended beyond ANSI- and ISO-Standard Pascal, and absolutely on a par with C++. The IDE is at least as easy and powerful as Visual Basic, and the powerful Visual Component Library is what makes it all work.
A few years ago, Borland used the slogan "As easy as Visual Basic, as powerful as C++!" -- and it was actually true!
So if I break into a warehouse and steal a hundred VCRs and sell them, that's illegal -- but if I give them away for free, that's OK??? Sure, I liked reading about Robin Hood and his merry men in the Sherwood Forest when I was a kid, too... But still, whether it is legal for me to sell or give something away depends not so much on which of those it is I'm doing, as on whether it was mine to give away (or sell) in the first place.
And, just to make it perfectly clear: In this context, that means I can not give away copies of Delphi (including VCL source code), because Borland owns the rights to that. But I can give away the applications I write in it, because that's my source code (and Borland grants me the right to link objects from its VCL library into my apps; that's a large part of what I pay my license for).
OK, done. Hope it helps...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
And people who don't have Delphi at all couldn't, of course, participate in his project. Too bad, but that's just the way it is.
Fortunately, what you can do is run -- don't walk, run! -- out and buy this month's issue of British mag PC Plus: It has Delphi 3 Professional on the cover CD! An unbelievable value, at just $16 (or was it $14?) US. Their Web site is at http://www.pcplus.co.uk IIRC.
Sure, it has one of those freebie trial licenses (Borland are just being generous, they're not completely crazy!
But that's actually not too big a problem, if you're getting it just to participate in projects like this: If I remember correctly, the license doesn't say anything about distributing source code you've built in it... ("Distributing" it back to the maintainers of Open Source projects, for instance, who presumably have fully-licensed commercial copies of Delphi, and thus can distribute whatever they like however they like!
But that has nothing to do with the open-source nature of this project, per se.
I'm sure there are many thousands of pirated copies of, say, Microsoft "Visual" (Ha!) C++ in use, too -- among commercial, as well as free- and shareware authors. But that is not in any way an issue that has anything to do with the advantages and disadvantages of their respective business models.
That would also be utterly idiotic.
Your "no VCL" requirement is totally bogus and superfluous. Linking the object framework into your applications is perfectly legal, no matter how you distribute them or whether you're being paid for them or not. (OK, distributing those applications is not, if you're using a magazine-freebie copy of the IDE.) That's what it's for, you know.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Microlith" writes:
What are you babbling about?!?
He doesn't have to distribute the source of TForm or other VCL objects! The developers who could be eligible to participate -- those who have Delphi -- already have that. And each of them linking that into their projects when compiling is perfectly legal too: We can already give away source-less "free-as-in-beer" apps built on the VCL -- that freedom is basically what we pay for when we buy Delphi. And the source code we write from scratch, that only refers to Borland's VCL units (i.e, tells the IDE to link them in), is of course ours to do whatever we like with; how the heck could Borland's copyrights cover that?
Huh?!?
If including Borland's VCL were a problem with the somewhat-restricted GPL, how the heck could it be any less of a problem with the totally free-for-all BSD licenses? And what would be the benefit of his "hang[ing] it all out and go[ing] BSD" -- except that that would make it perfectly legal for some sleazeball "entrepreneur" to hijack his code base, close it off, and start selling a "competing" copy of his work?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
But so what; it means relatively fewer people will be able to participate in development (i.e, only those who have bought Delphi) than would be in a gcc project on Linux, but that's all. And FWIW, I think the Delphi community is among the most open-source-friendly bunches of folks you can find in the Windows world. Hey, you've got this guy asking here...
The future is NOW!Well, depends on what you mean by "porting": it isn't quite here *yet* (neither the port nor, thus, the future), but they *are* busy porting it right at this moment. Expected release some time mid-year.
That reminds me: In stead of wasting my time here at work, surfing Slashdot after hours, I should go home and install Linux on my new PC so I can try to wheedle on to the beta program... :-)
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
I could of course be wrong, but I don't think the free ("as in beer") Borland C++ 5.5 download includes source.
;^) is certainly *not* free in either sense of the word.
And that's their *old* system; C++ Builder ("Delphi, but with uglier syntax"
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Nuggz" quotes "Ebbv":
>i don't think they were all that vague.
and replies:
"I don't think this statement is very specific"
If your attention span could stretch more than one full stop back, you'd see that it was a direct reply to your earlier sentence:
"Vague allusions to the quality of my post really don't prove anything, and are just useful for distraction."
There is one thing there that you used the very word "vague" about: Allusions to the quality of [your] post.
What he is saying is, in effect: "My allusions to the quality of your post weren't vague".
Of course, that you "don't think this statement is very specific" only goes to show he's right: The quality of your posts really does suck.
(And that is, ironically, probably yet another example of the failure of that public school system you're a product of, and so misguidedly eager to defend. Especially misguided since you only managed to expose it all the more in the process.)
HTH!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Well, it sure doesn't need hypocrites who won't release their source, either.
What's so "Open Source community" about not releasing your source???
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
He can just ignore them, and call the people asking for help "asses", can't he?
Just like he does now, with those who ask for the source code...
Eh, who says that OpenSource means "release only something that is finished"? Is there someone like RMS, ESR or Bruce Perens claiming that you have to release finished products? I don't think so.
Would you consider Linux "finished", for example? No? Well, it's "more finished" now than it was when it was released, isn't it? And, hey -- isn't all this talk about the benefits of open source based on the theory that Linux is "more finished" now than it was when it was released, because it was released?
Where do you think Linux would be now, if it hadn't been released back when it was a lot "less finished"?
No, on the contrary -- it is your attitude that looks like it belongs more to a pay me, pay me, pay me closed-source software vendor than it belongs to the Open Source movement.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
...that the post you responded to might have been a bit of sarcasm?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christopher B. Brown writes:
"Borland didn't actually own much of the software that they used to sell; they were essentially reselling software produced by other companies."
Actually, I think they did/do own the code.
It's just that for products they discontinued, they sold it -- sometimes to third parties (Paradox to Corel, dBase to the newly-formed dBase, Inc), and sometimes back to the original owner they'd bought it from.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
[Quoting shadrack]
Read: Were agressively, and possibly illegaly, head-hunted by Microsoft...
You're thinking of Anders Hejlsberg, the man behind Turbo Pascal and Delphi. But no, I think "J++" was already released when he was poached by, eh, Brad Silverberg IIRC. Now, this "COOL" thingy, on the other hand...
I think my account is closer to the reports (and speculations) at the time.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
I think it could be. I'm not sure how much of this is wishful hinking, though; I'm sure hoping it would.
Yes, this is what I'm hoping for. As I said in another post, Interbase isn't "integral" to Borland development tools (in the sense that they wouldn't work without it) -- but it is "integrated", in the sense that it works much better with them than without them... (Now let's just hope not too many notice that this goes equally for many other databases!
Though I'd like to think so, I'm not so sure: As others have pointed out, InterBase just plain works too well to need much in the way of direct DBA support... But sure, combined InterBase / Delphi support might become more of an issue than it is now.
Well, not me -- I'm a Borland fan, so I'm already hoping for that. But I'm hoping it will have this effect on others...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Martin K writes:
Delphi C/S is expensive, yes, but I'm not sure if you could justifiedly call it "extremely" expensive.
Be that as it may; where you're more wrong is in the "Interbase being an integral part" claim. Technically, Interbase is (or was up to and including Delphi 4) no more "integral" to Delphi than were/are Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Sewer, Informix, or DB/2. Basically, all you got was SQL Links; BDE-native plug-in drivers for these databases. (Disregarding the MIDAS and Web stuff for the moment, as not everybody uses that.)
And they provided a development-use-only licensed copy of InterBase for you to work with, yes. But the intent of that could just as well be for developing applications that are then deployed on some other RDBMS, as to deploy on InterBase.
As of Delphi 5, they've integrated a set of "InterBase Express" components into Delphi -- from the Professional edition and upwards. But these are just a set of plug-in VCL components; there are other such free- and share-ware VCL collections (this is what IBX started as!) to connect to other RDBMSes, and if you use them, those RDBMSes are just as "integral" to your Delphi set-up as InterBase is. Heck, given that there is also a set of "ADO Express" components, you could just as well say that MS SQL Sewer is "integral" to Delphi...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Yes they do.
They got it (back when they were still called Borland) by buying Ashton-Tate, which was perhaps better known for its dBase product. A couple of years ago they spun it off into its own company, InterBase Corp, ironically coming full circle; it had been a separate company (founded by ex-Digital employees IIRC) before A-T bought it, too.
But InterBase Corp is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inprise; so yes, they do own it.
I wouldn't know about that. (But I do suspect you're exaggerating.)
I also suspect this is a distortion or over-simplification. For one thing, last I heard, not all the "top ppl at IB left". (Why would that "crazy" CEO leave, for instance, if he's the one driving the others away?)
Yup; a competitor to Oracle and DB/2 and MS SQL Sewer and so on. Except for some reason they often call themselves an "embedded" database server (what's that, really -- I thought "embedded" means chips in elevators, and so on?), and perhaps because of that they're often not seen as being as "high end" as other client/server database systems like Oracle and DB/2.
Given themselves, rather.
Well of course; that's only sound business reasoning. Sure, they could "give themselves" -- that is, give Delphi customers -- an unlimited redistribution license, but why would they? A five-user license is amply good enough for development work; and if you want to deploy your work on IB, they want you to buy the licenses for your end users (or your end users to buy them for themselves).
I don't think IBM gives away unlimited DB/2 licenses with their VisualAge programming systems either...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Well duh, if they're putting thousands of hours into it, they must be stupid to want to be paid to do so."
And this is supposed to be part of an argument *for* the *BSD licenses...?
The answer, of course, is:
"No, they give it away, because they are so altruistic that the only thing they ask for is the same altruism back."
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
...but only vaguely.
I think it must have been Asimov -- his short stories are what I read so long ago that I can't recall them exactly.
(Or perhaps Sheckley? Or Blish?)
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
McC writes:
"if flmes _are_ a problem, well, they deserve it anyway. NSI has cost this person, and many people like him, a lot of money and inconvenience; they can deal with the slight karmic retribution of having their mail server crash."
Heck, yeah, I couldn't agree more -- in principle.
Only, if they are as incompetent as they seem to be, that mail server is probably also the database server for the registration database itself, so crashing it will cause the exact same kind of problem for even *more* innocent victims!
So IMO y'all should really make that a set of REAL, not metaphorical, pitchforks and torches...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
[Quoting someone else:]
Eh, hmmm, "I just wish it worked that way..."
And the parts of a corporation that actually do the decision-making are so far away from the market that the customer really doesn't have any control over what they do at all. Like, how accountable towards you, personally, do you think that the CEO of Exxon feels he is? More than Clinton?
Geez, what a screwed-up world-view you seem to have: In government, structure means bureaucracy means distance means no influence for the ordinary person -- but in corporations, all those problems somewhow magically go away!
And you think you're being "objective" and unbiased, I take it...?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.