5 ms·

So I get excited about seeing an old friend. Then when I read the article, they are opensourcing a version which only works with Delphi versions prior to 2009.

So I get excited about seeing an old friend. Then when I read the article, they are opensourcing a version which only works with Delphi versions prior to 2009. Dude, this is 2020.

narag 6y ago
They closed the news server (and its web gateway) a few years ago. I guess they did it to avoid the backlash of news like this. Wow. Edit: is there any other forum out there? I remember some google group or something but it was mostly dead too.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Wait, why would you close something in order to avoid backlash about opening it?
  - narag 6y ago
    Delphi and family have changed hands several times since the golden Delphi 7 age. A lot of the decisions along the way were very controversial. Think of a product with a massive community turning into niche. Price up while cutting costs. It was clear that they intended to squeeze the few remaining customers. The forums, even moderated by the company, reflected the bad morale. So they closed the forums. They were in a nntp server with a web gateway. The last insult, that made me disconnect, was removing database access from the "Professional" license and moving it to the "Enterprise Architect", not sure how it ended, I couldn't keep watching. This Bold news seem too little too late.
    - fmxexpress 6y ago
      This is inaccurate. The pro license compiles to Android, IOS, Windows, and OSX. You can connect to SQLite and IBlite. Additionally, you can connect to MySQL or other DBs on localhost for example. Lastly, you can connect to remote databases with third party solutions (though against the spirit of the license). The enterprise license allows connecting to over 20 different remote databases. The architect license (the most expensive) has additional features not related to connecting to remote databases.
      - narag 6y ago
        How much is Pro nowadays? And it can't connect to a proper RDBMS. Come on. But don't worry, the post is surely out of the front page now, so nobody cares what I say.
        fmxexpress 6y ago
        ~$51/month for 36 months.
rpeden 6y ago
As the post mentions, several Delphi customers had updated Bold to work with newer versions of Delphi but weren’t about to share their changes since Bold hadn’t been released under an open source license. It looks like enabling that sharing is one of the reasons for open sourcing Bold. So it might be keeping an eye on the GitHub repository.
- samuell 6y ago
  Exactly! this is hopefully the start of a great community effort at making an up to date, great platform. (I know the guys behind one of the major users, and they should have a lot of goodies to share, hopefully).
dmitriid 6y ago
Embarcadero is now owned by these guys: https://www.ideracorp.com https://www.ideracorp.com Their primary modus operandi seems to be: buy tech that's still bringing in money, fire everyone except a small core of people to keep the product barely alive with minor updates, sell expensive long-term licenses to enterprises. It's no surprise that "the latest official version of Bold is is for Delphi 2006" [1] and that the goal of the opensource version is "is to encourage customers active on the library to share their more recent versions" [2] [1] https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Bold_for_Delphi#The_legal_rights https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Bold_for_Delphi#The_legal_rig... [2] https://blogs.embarcadero.com/bold-for-delphi-is-open-source/ https://blogs.embarcadero.com/bold-for-delphi-is-open-source...
- mhd 6y ago
  > buy tech that's still bringing in money, fire everyone except a small core of people to keep the product barely alive with minor updates, sell expensive long-term licenses to enterprises. That's pretty much what they did with Sencha/ExtJS, too. Not that it wasn't in dire straits even before the acquisition, though.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    And Travis CI. On the day they announced acquisition they let go something like 80% of the staff.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

So I get excited about seeing an old friend. Then when I read the article, they are opensourcing a version which only works with Delphi versions prior to 2009. Dude, this is 2020.

narag 6y ago

They closed the news server (and its web gateway) a few years ago. I guess they did it to avoid the backlash of news like this. Wow. Edit: is there any other forum out there? I remember some google group or something but it was mostly dead too.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Wait, why would you close something in order to avoid backlash about opening it?
- narag 6y ago
  Delphi and family have changed hands several times since the golden Delphi 7 age. A lot of the decisions along the way were very controversial. Think of a product with a massive community turning into niche. Price up while cutting costs. It was clear that they intended to squeeze the few remaining customers. The forums, even moderated by the company, reflected the bad morale. So they closed the forums. They were in a nntp server with a web gateway. The last insult, that made me disconnect, was removing database access from the "Professional" license and moving it to the "Enterprise Architect", not sure how it ended, I couldn't keep watching. This Bold news seem too little too late.
  - fmxexpress 6y ago
    This is inaccurate. The pro license compiles to Android, IOS, Windows, and OSX. You can connect to SQLite and IBlite. Additionally, you can connect to MySQL or other DBs on localhost for example. Lastly, you can connect to remote databases with third party solutions (though against the spirit of the license). The enterprise license allows connecting to over 20 different remote databases. The architect license (the most expensive) has additional features not related to connecting to remote databases.
    - narag 6y ago
      How much is Pro nowadays? And it can't connect to a proper RDBMS. Come on. But don't worry, the post is surely out of the front page now, so nobody cares what I say.
      - fmxexpress 6y ago
        ~$51/month for 36 months.

rpeden 6y ago

As the post mentions, several Delphi customers had updated Bold to work with newer versions of Delphi but weren’t about to share their changes since Bold hadn’t been released under an open source license. It looks like enabling that sharing is one of the reasons for open sourcing Bold. So it might be keeping an eye on the GitHub repository.

samuell 6y ago
Exactly! this is hopefully the start of a great community effort at making an up to date, great platform. (I know the guys behind one of the major users, and they should have a lot of goodies to share, hopefully).

dmitriid 6y ago

Embarcadero is now owned by these guys: https://www.ideracorp.com https://www.ideracorp.com Their primary modus operandi seems to be: buy tech that's still bringing in money, fire everyone except a small core of people to keep the product barely alive with minor updates, sell expensive long-term licenses to enterprises. It's no surprise that "the latest official version of Bold is is for Delphi 2006" [1] and that the goal of the opensource version is "is to encourage customers active on the library to share their more recent versions" [2] [1] https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Bold_for_Delphi#The_legal_rights https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Bold_for_Delphi#The_legal_rig... [2] https://blogs.embarcadero.com/bold-for-delphi-is-open-source/ https://blogs.embarcadero.com/bold-for-delphi-is-open-source...

mhd 6y ago
> buy tech that's still bringing in money, fire everyone except a small core of people to keep the product barely alive with minor updates, sell expensive long-term licenses to enterprises. That's pretty much what they did with Sencha/ExtJS, too. Not that it wasn't in dire straits even before the acquisition, though.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  And Travis CI. On the day they announced acquisition they let go something like 80% of the staff.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]