6 ms·

Is this new or has this been around already for a while? Limited commercial use license. So I guess not interesting for many people? At least I would not want

Is this new or has this been around already for a while? Limited commercial use license. So I guess not interesting for many people? At least I would not want to work with such a product, even if I don't have any commercial plans. Obviously, I such a post, someone needs to mention Lazarus (https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ https://www.lazarus-ide.org/). How does it compare?

tecleandor 3y ago
Also the limit is quite, quite low. Only if you make less than $5K a year. But not on your Delphi project, but in anything else you do as a contractor or as a company.
- contravariant 3y ago
  I mean they're free to put the limit wherever they want. I think allowing it to be used for hobby projects is still a good thing. To use the same limit for donations to non-profits, however, is harsh. It basically makes it impossible to use for any serious open source project, which is a damn shame.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Hardly much different from using VS Community edition.
  - tecleandor 3y ago
    VS Community limits are way different. Seems like there's no limit for individuals, and the limits for "corporations" begin in $1M on annual revenue. An even when hitting those "corporation limits" you can still use it if it's for " (i) open source; (ii) Visual Studio extensions; (iii) device drivers for the Windows operating system; (iv) SQL Server development; and, (v) education purposes as permitted above." edit: VS Community Terms: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-community/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-c...
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Still, I find the license quite alright for what is ultimely a commercial product, https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/faq https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/faq Even JetBrains isn't that into charity with their products, see recent RustRover announcement.
      - mihular 3y ago
        Rider is commercial only as well and not expensive at all. I guess MS compensates from other services (Azure) when you build an app with free VS against them.
        pasc1878 3y ago
        Or the usual MS gain that they have been using for the last 40 years. Most VS written programs run on MS operating system and/or Office so they get there money from sellinmg these.
pjmlp 3y ago
Lazarus is currently behind in Delphi features, also stuck on Gtk migration AFAIK.
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  This is misleading as Lazarus and Delphi both have features that the other one does not, that doesn't make one "behind" than the other. Lazarus is a community driven project, if someone needs something to be implemented they can implement it themselves - and if something is not implemented then nobody really needed it enough to do it. Also there is no such a thing as "Gtk migration", since sadly Gtk is not backwards compatible with its own major versions, every new version needs a new LCL backend. But existing backends are not replaced (there is no migration from one to another) and any ongoing work reflect the interests of the people using it. Personally i have contributed to LCL and i dislike Gtk3 and later versions of Gtk so i do not even bother trying Gtk3 or later, but i have contributed several fixes for both Gtk2 and even the Gtk1 backends. Also i have implemented Win32 fixes, including MDI support (which wasn't available for years) since that was something that i wanted. Also FWIW there are also Qt-based backends. I haven't used them much but some developers prefer to use Qt as a backend instead of Gtk.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    No it is not, as most people care about Delphi support on Lazarus, not the other way around. Likewise, it is misleading not to consider moving to the actual, maintained Gtk version, migration. Whatever how one feels about Gtk development process, supporting the actual version is quite relevant for most people.
    - badsectoracula 3y ago
      > No it is not, as most people care about Delphi support on Lazarus, not the other way around. The majority of Lazarus users do not care about Delphi at all, they treat Lazarus as a project of its own, not a free version of Delphi. Lazarus (and Free Pascal) developers provide Delphi compatibility where that makes sense to let people convert their Delphi projects to Lazarus and allow component authors to share code between Delphi and Lazarus, but it was never meant to be 100% compatible nor replicate everything Delphi does. If you want to share code between Delphi and Lazarus/FPC you are expected to restrict yourself to the common set of features between the two - and even then you are still going to have to do convertions between the two (AFAIK the form format is incompatible and you need to use Lazarus to convert Delphi forms to it) and use IFDEFs in the code. > Likewise, it is misleading not to consider moving to the actual, maintained Gtk version, migration. There is nothing misleading here nor there is any migration going on, i explained how the widgetsets are developed very clearly. There are some people working on Gtk3 and AFAIK there is even some Gtk4 code but those are not going to replace the existing Gtk1 and Gtk2 widgetsets. In fact Gtk is not even the only toolkit(s) supported as there are also Qt4, Qt5 and Qt6 widgetsets. > Whatever how one feels about Gtk development process, supporting the actual version is quite relevant for most people. And these people can easily help develop the version they want to use, which is precisely what i've done myself. Again, it is a community driven project.
ensocode 3y ago
Lazarus supports different languages
wongarsu 3y ago
The UI designer of Lazarus seems about on par with Delphi 7, from what I gather? Given that UI is one of Delphi's big selling point that's a substantial difference. Imo the Delhi licenses aren't very expensive for professional use, but to maintain a talent pool they need an option for hobbyists. That's what community edition is supposed to be
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  The Lazarus UI designer is way more advanced than the one in Delphi 7. The anchor system alone (which allows you to place controls in relation to other controls which maintaining automatic layout and resizing - e.g. make a bunch of buttons share the same right edge regardless of how large the text inside the buttons is, then put a separator a few pixels[0] ahead of that edge and have other controls' left edge be at the same distance from the separator - then have the container automatically size itself to fit these, taking margins into account, all these done through the GUI with no need to write any code). Perhaps you saw the floating windows and thought it was similar to Delphi 7? The floating windows mode is the default (as a lot of people using Lazarus prefer it) but you can also have a single window mode (with or without embedded form designer). It used to be clunky at the past but in recent times it got polished out as some of the developers use the single window mode instead.
signaru 3y ago
Lazarus gives you cross-platform and multiple architecttures at no cost. From what I recall, Lazarus is a more lightweight install, while the Delphi IDE has better coding features. For the classic VCL (Delphi has other new frameworks), I haven't found anything that LCL cannot do yet, but I don't do anything unusual with the widgets. The FreePascal language is mostly compatible, however, they don't plan to strictly follow newer Delphi language features (e.g. inline declarations).
- nunobrito 3y ago
  Lazarus was crap. That was the reason why it never replaced Delphi in the first place. Compiler was slow by comparison to get anything compiled, produced 10x bigger binaries. The IDE for GUI wasn't something to brag about and the help system (yes, Delphi actually had code snippets built into the docs) was dramatically worse. Delphi 7 was a masterpiece. Haven't tried Lazarus in the last 10 years. Hopefully many of my critics have become obsolete by now.
  - memsom 3y ago
    I did Delphi dev for about 10 years. For me it was Delphi 5 that was the king (I did use every version prior to that too.. including version 1). Delphi 6 added CLX and that was weird and awkward. No where I was working wanted to go to Delphi 6+, and I left Delphi in about 2007 anyway, so all the Embarcadero years are a mystery to me. I worked for a company that had a relationship with Borland and I have early versions of Kylix (I think the first version I saw, the IDE barely worked) - and that sort of made some sense of CLX, but the upgrade path was way way too steep. Would I ever go back to Delphi/Object Pascal? In a word - no.
    - nunobrito 3y ago
      Same feelings here. Did the same in 2010 and jumped boat to Java. After almost 17 years on Pascal for serious/intensive programming, nowadays don't even remember the syntax basics. Oh well, so is life.
  - anotherlab 3y ago
slotrans 3y ago
It's not new. I downloaded community edition under these same terms 3 or 4 years ago.

tecleandor 3y ago

Also the limit is quite, quite low. Only if you make less than $5K a year. But not on your Delphi project, but in anything else you do as a contractor or as a company.

contravariant 3y ago
I mean they're free to put the limit wherever they want. I think allowing it to be used for hobby projects is still a good thing. To use the same limit for donations to non-profits, however, is harsh. It basically makes it impossible to use for any serious open source project, which is a damn shame.
pjmlp 3y ago
Hardly much different from using VS Community edition.
- tecleandor 3y ago
  VS Community limits are way different. Seems like there's no limit for individuals, and the limits for "corporations" begin in $1M on annual revenue. An even when hitting those "corporation limits" you can still use it if it's for " (i) open source; (ii) Visual Studio extensions; (iii) device drivers for the Windows operating system; (iv) SQL Server development; and, (v) education purposes as permitted above." edit: VS Community Terms: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-community/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/vs2022-ga-c...
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Still, I find the license quite alright for what is ultimely a commercial product, https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/faq https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/faq Even JetBrains isn't that into charity with their products, see recent RustRover announcement.
    - mihular 3y ago
      Rider is commercial only as well and not expensive at all. I guess MS compensates from other services (Azure) when you build an app with free VS against them.
      - pasc1878 3y ago
        Or the usual MS gain that they have been using for the last 40 years. Most VS written programs run on MS operating system and/or Office so they get there money from sellinmg these.

pjmlp 3y ago

Lazarus is currently behind in Delphi features, also stuck on Gtk migration AFAIK.

badsectoracula 3y ago
This is misleading as Lazarus and Delphi both have features that the other one does not, that doesn't make one "behind" than the other. Lazarus is a community driven project, if someone needs something to be implemented they can implement it themselves - and if something is not implemented then nobody really needed it enough to do it. Also there is no such a thing as "Gtk migration", since sadly Gtk is not backwards compatible with its own major versions, every new version needs a new LCL backend. But existing backends are not replaced (there is no migration from one to another) and any ongoing work reflect the interests of the people using it. Personally i have contributed to LCL and i dislike Gtk3 and later versions of Gtk so i do not even bother trying Gtk3 or later, but i have contributed several fixes for both Gtk2 and even the Gtk1 backends. Also i have implemented Win32 fixes, including MDI support (which wasn't available for years) since that was something that i wanted. Also FWIW there are also Qt-based backends. I haven't used them much but some developers prefer to use Qt as a backend instead of Gtk.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  No it is not, as most people care about Delphi support on Lazarus, not the other way around. Likewise, it is misleading not to consider moving to the actual, maintained Gtk version, migration. Whatever how one feels about Gtk development process, supporting the actual version is quite relevant for most people.
  - badsectoracula 3y ago
    > No it is not, as most people care about Delphi support on Lazarus, not the other way around. The majority of Lazarus users do not care about Delphi at all, they treat Lazarus as a project of its own, not a free version of Delphi. Lazarus (and Free Pascal) developers provide Delphi compatibility where that makes sense to let people convert their Delphi projects to Lazarus and allow component authors to share code between Delphi and Lazarus, but it was never meant to be 100% compatible nor replicate everything Delphi does. If you want to share code between Delphi and Lazarus/FPC you are expected to restrict yourself to the common set of features between the two - and even then you are still going to have to do convertions between the two (AFAIK the form format is incompatible and you need to use Lazarus to convert Delphi forms to it) and use IFDEFs in the code. > Likewise, it is misleading not to consider moving to the actual, maintained Gtk version, migration. There is nothing misleading here nor there is any migration going on, i explained how the widgetsets are developed very clearly. There are some people working on Gtk3 and AFAIK there is even some Gtk4 code but those are not going to replace the existing Gtk1 and Gtk2 widgetsets. In fact Gtk is not even the only toolkit(s) supported as there are also Qt4, Qt5 and Qt6 widgetsets. > Whatever how one feels about Gtk development process, supporting the actual version is quite relevant for most people. And these people can easily help develop the version they want to use, which is precisely what i've done myself. Again, it is a community driven project.

ensocode 3y ago

Lazarus supports different languages

wongarsu 3y ago

The UI designer of Lazarus seems about on par with Delphi 7, from what I gather? Given that UI is one of Delphi's big selling point that's a substantial difference. Imo the Delhi licenses aren't very expensive for professional use, but to maintain a talent pool they need an option for hobbyists. That's what community edition is supposed to be

badsectoracula 3y ago
The Lazarus UI designer is way more advanced than the one in Delphi 7. The anchor system alone (which allows you to place controls in relation to other controls which maintaining automatic layout and resizing - e.g. make a bunch of buttons share the same right edge regardless of how large the text inside the buttons is, then put a separator a few pixels[0] ahead of that edge and have other controls' left edge be at the same distance from the separator - then have the container automatically size itself to fit these, taking margins into account, all these done through the GUI with no need to write any code). Perhaps you saw the floating windows and thought it was similar to Delphi 7? The floating windows mode is the default (as a lot of people using Lazarus prefer it) but you can also have a single window mode (with or without embedded form designer). It used to be clunky at the past but in recent times it got polished out as some of the developers use the single window mode instead.

signaru 3y ago

Lazarus gives you cross-platform and multiple architecttures at no cost. From what I recall, Lazarus is a more lightweight install, while the Delphi IDE has better coding features. For the classic VCL (Delphi has other new frameworks), I haven't found anything that LCL cannot do yet, but I don't do anything unusual with the widgets. The FreePascal language is mostly compatible, however, they don't plan to strictly follow newer Delphi language features (e.g. inline declarations).

nunobrito 3y ago
Lazarus was crap. That was the reason why it never replaced Delphi in the first place. Compiler was slow by comparison to get anything compiled, produced 10x bigger binaries. The IDE for GUI wasn't something to brag about and the help system (yes, Delphi actually had code snippets built into the docs) was dramatically worse. Delphi 7 was a masterpiece. Haven't tried Lazarus in the last 10 years. Hopefully many of my critics have become obsolete by now.
- memsom 3y ago
  I did Delphi dev for about 10 years. For me it was Delphi 5 that was the king (I did use every version prior to that too.. including version 1). Delphi 6 added CLX and that was weird and awkward. No where I was working wanted to go to Delphi 6+, and I left Delphi in about 2007 anyway, so all the Embarcadero years are a mystery to me. I worked for a company that had a relationship with Borland and I have early versions of Kylix (I think the first version I saw, the IDE barely worked) - and that sort of made some sense of CLX, but the upgrade path was way way too steep. Would I ever go back to Delphi/Object Pascal? In a word - no.
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    Same feelings here. Did the same in 2010 and jumped boat to Java. After almost 17 years on Pascal for serious/intensive programming, nowadays don't even remember the syntax basics. Oh well, so is life.
- anotherlab 3y ago

slotrans 3y ago

It's not new. I downloaded community edition under these same terms 3 or 4 years ago.