3 ms·

A lot of paradigms in Visual Studio owe their heritage to Delphi because of Anders. If Delphi was open sourced, or heck — if it had a free license for personal

A lot of paradigms in Visual Studio owe their heritage to Delphi because of Anders. If Delphi was open sourced, or heck — if it had a free license for personal use, I would bet it would still be the dominant IDE.

badsectoracula 5y ago
Delphi, C++ Builder, etc do have free licenses for personal use actually[0][1] and they had for a while. It is just that their license is only free until you have $5k annual revenue (the site's wording might sound as if this has to come from selling Delphi software but the actual license[2] isn't that specific). [0] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter [1] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter [2] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/rad-studio-eula https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/rad-studio-e...
- romwell 5y ago
  Sure, but by the time the introduced these licenses, people stopped caring about Delphi. IIRC Borland never did that, and that's why it's no longer a household name.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    Borland had the Delphi 7 Personal Edition, but it was only for non-commercial use only. It was distributed widely though - I personally still have a copy i got from a magazine coverdisk for example. But TBH Borland also had much lower prices - up to (IIRC) Delphi 5 you could get the most basic version of Delphi (which is good enough for a lot of tasks, especially for individuals) for $100 and that used Borland's "no-nonsense" license that was no strings attached, allowing reselling, etc. It was when they were taken over by Enterprise Envy that things went downhill for them.
    - romwell 5y ago
      I think Delphi 7 was the last version of Delphi I actively used. But it was back in Ukraine, at a time when everything was pirated, so the question of licensing didn't really come up. Ah. Enterprise Envy is such a pity. I really had my hopes up when Kylix came out.
      - badsectoracula 5y ago
        Well, many consider Delphi 7 to be the last good Delphi :-P (and FWIW Delphi 2006 to be the worst one - which, incidentally, was also used as the basis for the short lived "Turbo Delphi" that most likely didn't do it any favors)
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  Embarcadero is unfortunately the typical enterprise software company that makes their pricing as opaque as possible and very hostile towards small companies. Definitely not something I would bet my little company on.
- brnt 5y ago
  Theyve had that free license for one or two years now, before that there was nothing. Lazarus was and is the better choice in any case.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  To be fair, Visual Studio Community also has similar constraints.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    The Visual Studio Community edition is way, WAY less restricting. It is free for individuals, period (it is the very first thing mentioned in the license[0]). If you are an organization, you can also use it for free as long as no more than five people use it at the same time and you are not an enterprise (defined as an organization with 250 or more than $1m in annual revenue). Regardless of any of the above it is also free if you make open source software. This is a far cry from Embarcadero's restrictions. [0] https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-community/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-c...
webmobdev 5y ago
There's an active opensource Delphi clone that is nearly feature equivalent - https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ - if you are interested. And you can use it to create commercial software applications too.

badsectoracula 5y ago

Delphi, C++ Builder, etc do have free licenses for personal use actually[0][1] and they had for a while. It is just that their license is only free until you have $5k annual revenue (the site's wording might sound as if this has to come from selling Delphi software but the actual license[2] isn't that specific). [0] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter [1] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter [2] https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/rad-studio-eula https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/rad-studio-e...

romwell 5y ago
Sure, but by the time the introduced these licenses, people stopped caring about Delphi. IIRC Borland never did that, and that's why it's no longer a household name.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Borland had the Delphi 7 Personal Edition, but it was only for non-commercial use only. It was distributed widely though - I personally still have a copy i got from a magazine coverdisk for example. But TBH Borland also had much lower prices - up to (IIRC) Delphi 5 you could get the most basic version of Delphi (which is good enough for a lot of tasks, especially for individuals) for $100 and that used Borland's "no-nonsense" license that was no strings attached, allowing reselling, etc. It was when they were taken over by Enterprise Envy that things went downhill for them.
  - romwell 5y ago
    I think Delphi 7 was the last version of Delphi I actively used. But it was back in Ukraine, at a time when everything was pirated, so the question of licensing didn't really come up. Ah. Enterprise Envy is such a pity. I really had my hopes up when Kylix came out.
    - badsectoracula 5y ago
      Well, many consider Delphi 7 to be the last good Delphi :-P (and FWIW Delphi 2006 to be the worst one - which, incidentally, was also used as the basis for the short lived "Turbo Delphi" that most likely didn't do it any favors)
spaetzleesser 5y ago
Embarcadero is unfortunately the typical enterprise software company that makes their pricing as opaque as possible and very hostile towards small companies. Definitely not something I would bet my little company on.
brnt 5y ago
Theyve had that free license for one or two years now, before that there was nothing. Lazarus was and is the better choice in any case.
pjmlp 5y ago
To be fair, Visual Studio Community also has similar constraints.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  The Visual Studio Community edition is way, WAY less restricting. It is free for individuals, period (it is the very first thing mentioned in the license[0]). If you are an organization, you can also use it for free as long as no more than five people use it at the same time and you are not an enterprise (defined as an organization with 250 or more than $1m in annual revenue). Regardless of any of the above it is also free if you make open source software. This is a far cry from Embarcadero's restrictions. [0] https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-community/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-c...

webmobdev 5y ago

There's an active opensource Delphi clone that is nearly feature equivalent - https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ - if you are interested. And you can use it to create commercial software applications too.