One are those who want to try out a programming language but won’t pay money to do so.

The other are those who would pay but cannot afford 800 dollars (or won’t unless they know the language).

So my idea for the two sub-professional editions is this:

1. A “Free Edition” without VCL for text-mode-only programs (unless the developer uses the native API directly). This gives people a way to learn the language and use it for home projects which they wouldn’t sell anyway.

2. A “Standard Edition” with VCL but without database connectivity (unless the developer writes his own or usesa third-party connector). This edition should cost between 200 and 400 dollars.

I know lots of people who write lots of text-mode programs for their own use. And they choose the language based on exactly three features:

1. The language is free.

2. The language can be used to write text-mode programs.

3. The language is already installed or can easily be downloaded.

Since Delphi targets Windows, it only has to compete with vbscript (on Mac OS X and Linux it has to compete with Perl, Pythin, Ruby and other pre-installed languages). A Free Edition as explained above covers all three points, for Windows. And no way would this result in lost sales.

Getting in new blood is going to be really difficult at this stage. There isn’t enough jobs out there to get the new graduates interested in learning Delphi.

One possible idea would be to have competitions each year along the lines of Google Code (similar to what Coderage has but with a bounty – does Coderage have bounties? I am not sure). That way, we would at least have a forum where companies can come and hire good talent and there would be an incentive for someone to learn Delphi.

Something that absolutely needs to be done is to reduce the cost of the Delphi license. Community Edition is good – better still would be to have a non-commercial license and a commercial license.

@Joylon – There are a number of products which work on the dual licensing mode – where the same product (no hidden splashscreens, messages etc) can be used with two different licenses – one commercial and another non-commercial. Commercial license will allow the developer to get additional support. This is better than architecting a new edition of Delphi.

My suggestion would be to have a single base IDE for Delphi and sell everything else as add-ons.

I have to admit that LDS has some very good points. But every time I read them and, I even read his own blog post, I get the impression that he is only thinking in the short time. Or he is only thinking of his position in time and cannot relate to when he was the hobbyist. This will lead to the a situation where the product dies when the users die themselves of old age. Where’s the call for new blood?

YES, admittedly, Borland/Inprise etc have botched up Delphi so deeply that any company picking up the pieces has to make up money QUICK to sustain the purchase. But this will only stick for a short while. Some kind of, more long term, plan has to be etched if one wants to remain in business. Unless Embarcadero has plan to bright burn Delphi and then jump to another product.

If someone can give a better PRESENT/REALISTIC option than stimulating a community I’m all ears. I’m chasing after a trend or whatever you want to call it, way of getting NEW BLOOD interested in Delphi so the overall use, either maintains, or grows in numbers. I’m not chasing after a solution that COULD be implemented or that WILL be made famous in the mean time. This would hurt more than help the community.

It’s a very well known fact that programmers stick to what they like. Most of the times these preferences are moulded in school/university/etc, so why not appeal to those guys?

LDS has a very strong point for the time being. But his point will die if there is no one to maintain HIS own work once he’s retired. We have to make sure HIS own work will endure the time with NEW BLOOD.

In conclusion, I don’t give a [fluffy bunny] if it’s going to be a lower entry barrier with a free edition and a cheaper standard edition, or something else that only lives in the fortune tellers mind, what I GIVE A [FLUFFY BUNNY] is that we need to maintain the stream of blood in the system or it will dry out and put Embarcadero out of business just because the companies have no Delphi programmers to hire and will jump the wagon to another well packed of programmers technology.

My 2 cents plus VAT

“The Pascal Community”

Esdumbo2003 has made a really valid point.

” join to communities: FreePascal and Delphi, because two communities are
small alone to do good and quickly job”

I certainly through the responses we have seen in Delphi arena – have come to realize that we need to no longer talk or think as Delphi people, but as “The Pascal Community” and posted on that to the NZ NG recently.

We need to explore the wealth of what it means overall to be proficient in any dialect of Pascal and extend ourselves and help each other to other Pascal resources and skill attainment.

We need to think more expansively and inclusively.

If the bugs fix policy in Delphi releases are going to require me to plan to buy on average 2.x versions in a three or so year period – as was suggested by one of their resellers on the NZ Delphi News Group recently – I really do not know if I could justify that level of expenditure. Then also as pointed out already we are so far above the equivalent USA price and have been so for a few years now – and that seems shameful to me to be on what is described as a six month re-calibration of exchange rate policy is I believe cheap treatment that I believe speaks volumes.

May be no one has had the technical skills to be able to better match the USD price to the NZD price on a more regular basis?

We need a broader perspective of what it means to have Pascal skills at our fingertips, and to take the learning curves and obtain proficiency in the available tools – not as alternatives but as adjuncts and a part of using Pascal over all.

Then use the tool(s) for each occasion that better suit the project and the people’s needs.

But overall if we want to not be stuck in only one environment to use our Pascal skills in, we need to support and encourage other environments, like Lazarus, and anything else worthwhile including Delphi as is appropriate.

Or we will be stuck in a single vendor market, which is never healthy.

Not at all. Alll hobbies have a price – developing is not different. There’s a lot I would like to get and can’t afford.

“There are FREE alternatives in software development where there usually isn’t for those other hobbies”

Exactly. Go and use them – why don’t you??? As you choose a cheaper camera when you can’t get an high-end one, you can choose a free tool if you can’t afford the professional one. Why do you want the professional camera for free?

“Kawasaki aren’t losing ground to Suzuki”. There are other businesses where one can afford to give away from free or almost something that is another’s one main business. For example here it happened with newspapers giving books and other items away at a very low prices – it impacted bookstores business. If Suzuki would earn enough from SUVs sales to give away motorbikes for free just to hurt competitors and sell more SUVs probably it would do.

“Embarcadero are entitled to charge what they like”. Of course they are, that’s freedom. It’s up to users to decide if the price is right or not. But just asking for a free product IMHO it’s greed – nothing more.

“we the users should pay up or shut up”. Not at all. I often pointed out lately that Delphi is offering too little for its prices. And I believe they don’t love me at Embarcadero. My company didn’t upgrade to 2009 because I decided it was not worth the upgrade. I didn’t upgrade my personal copy twice after they sold me 2005. Yet, I do not believe I shouldn’t pay for it. I just want to get something good for my money.

“Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.” No, I am someone who lives selling software, and don’t understand why it’s right to be paid for our software, but never to pay someone else for his software.

“because there aren’t enough people using it” Why many professional Delphi developers moved to C#? Because there are free VS versions? All those I know are not using the free versions. Was the appeal of .NET in its gratuitousness or in something else, say a large framework and a new, Hejlsberg-designed language?
Delphi needs more R&D and more QA, it needs more support (six months are not enough), it needs to offer more, not less. But it has a price no community can fill, especially the Delphi one – compared to other communities how much it produced?
Please, explain me how can Delphi survive if revenues decreases even more. My opinion about a free version? It would have a gazillion downloads and it would be the last Delphi version to be released. Then there would be lots of Delphi developers looking for another tool…

“I feel that it is important to continue to foster a Delphi community”. Good luck. For what I saw, many are ready to get and only a few to give.

“outside of the relentlessly commercial world”

Delphi is a commercial tool. If you like to be outside, there’s always the GNU foundation. They have a Pascal compiler too. I am in the commercial world too, and I just need tools to build my applications. Paying suppliers is part of the game.

“Whether Embarcadero is a commercially viable company is only one question”. It is as long as it can get enough revenuses *selling* tools, of course if it starts to give them away for free or it finds another source of revenues or it simply goes out of business. Do you sell or give your applications away for free?

There are FREE alternatives in software development where there usually isn’t for those other hobbies.

Kawasaki aren’t losing ground to Suzuki by not offering free motorcycles because NOBODY is offering free motorcycles.

BUT, someone who loves Kawasaki motorcycles but who can’t afford a brand new one CAN buy one second hand. This, again, is something that you CANNOT (easily) do when it comes to software development tools.

To all intents and purposes it is impossible. Borland used to allow you to do it but it was not a straightforward matter. I’ve no idea of Embarcadero would even continue to allow it at all.

One would have to suspect that this revised upgrade policy is a good indication that that sort of generosity is a thing of the past.

And you would have to be a hypocrit to think that that was a bad thing – after all, you seem to believe that Embarcadero are entitled to charge what they like and that we the users should pay up or shut up.

Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.

I feel that it is important to continue to foster a Delphi community, outside of the relentlessly commercial world, because that commercial world actually LOOKS to the community for support and as a barometer of the health of the tools it is using.

More and more I hear that Delphi is being rejected because “there aren’t enough people using it”. When a current, paying user says this, they don’t care whether those other people using it have paid for it or not.

Whether Embarcadero is a commercially viable company is only one question.

Whether the products they sell are sufficiently widely used to justify committing expenditure, resources and the future prosperity of your business is actually a quite separate question, and just as, if not more, important than the first.

People kept buying Delphi even when Borland were clearly failing commercially, because the product still worked (software doesn’t wear out) and other people were still using it.

But when people stop using Delphi, that’s when other people start looking around and starting to feel isolated and out on a limb.

@Joylon: I am in Italy – not US. A country with not-so-great salaries and a very high taxation – and life is expensive here too. The last year I worked as a consultant I paid almost 54% of my income in taxes. 400 euro are far more than 400 US dollars today it’s $589 and you have to add 20% VAT – $706.

IMHO the real driver behind all this discussion is what I explain here: http://www.sandon.it/?q=node/46