Where are the FD Enterprise Connectors hiding?

[David Schwartz 430]

The Enterprise license includes a bunch of FD Enterprise Connectors from CDATA. I grabbed some for D10.3, but I have not been able to find them for 10.4. (I can't even find the ones for 10.3 now either.)

 

Anybody know where to find them?

[Fred Ahrens 59]

The drivers are available for download at https://www.cdata.com/drivers/.

You will need to choose the driver you want to download. At the top of the next page you will need to choose "Firedac" from the toolbar. On the next page click on "Download" and on the final page "Download Full". The "Download Full" button looks disabled but is working and downloads the licensed version of the driver.

You will need your product key (it's the same for all CData drivers) for starting the download.

 

 

[Stéphane Wierzbicki 45]

WFIW The last time I checked (1 week ago), CData installers were.not updated to Delphi 11.

[Lachlan Gemmell 33]

I haven't confirmed it with Embarcadero but I heard they no longer have a bundling deal with CData.

 

I looked into those connectors but decided against using them for licensing reasons. Look closely at the license for those bundled connectors. They are only allowed to be used for your internal software. If you redistribute your software to any third party you have to buy a full license from CData.

 

OK so how much is a full license? Well for just one connector the price varies by connector but the Gmail connector for example is $799 per developer, per year.

 

Now can you distribute to third parties with that license from CData? No you can't. That $799 connector can still only be used for internal use.

 

So how can you distribute to anyone outside your company?

 

The website says contact CData for further pricing. I didn't bother.

 

Buying the full suite of connectors is somewhat more economical. You can get all their FireDAC connectors for $1999 but that's per developer, per year and still doesn't let you distribute software outside your own company.

 

If they were $50 each and you could distribute them as you liked as with almost every other Delphi component I'd consider them. With their licensing as it stands today I find it very difficult to justify purchasing them.

 

See here for the details from CData

https://www.cdata.com/subscriptions/firedac/#faq

Edited October 17, 2021 by Lachlan Gemmell

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

54 minutes ago, Lachlan Gemmell said:

With their licensing as it stands today I find it very difficult to justify purchasing them.

Indeed! I had several occasions where some of these connectors came in handy, but the licensing ruled it out right from the beginning.

[Lars Fosdal 1793]

Overpriced and underfeatured. Stay away.

[Fred Ahrens 59]

Wow.

We started using CDATA connectors already two years before Embarcadero started bundling it with some of the Delphi SKUs.

I wasn't aware that license conditions have changed. I just checked and compared with older EULAs shown during the CDATA component installation and there wasn't a limitation to inhouse distribution only. The 2018 version of the EULA was more similar to typical other component packages - only the typical restrictions did apply.

 

With this license change we'll have to stop using CDATA components. I guess we could afford to pay the costs for upgrading our existing licenses and bring them back to a royalty-free distribution model. Finally it would be a stupid investment as we don't know what other changes might be introduced in the licenses through the backdoor and might render our investment useless (again). I'll be happier with spending that money at other component developers who have a more developer-friendly business model.

[Rollo62 539]

On 10/17/2021 at 12:47 PM, David Schwartz said:

The Enterprise license includes a bunch of FD Enterprise Connectors from CDATA. I grabbed some for D10.3, but I have not been able to find them for 10.4. (I can't even find the ones for 10.3 now either.)

 

Anybody know where to find them?

I was also sure that they have been "included", and also I got some for testing.

My goal was to get started with 2 or 3 API's, to see how its going.

 

Since I could not find much time for testing, I had to realize one day that my unused licenses had been expired.

I've tried to check, to re-acivate the 1-year licenses, but they told me they were intended only for testing only, and once expired cannot prolonged for free.

The license terms were always very fuzzy to me ( as usual with Embarcadero stuff ).

If I wanted to prolong, I could get a 14-day trial, but thats maximum I could get, after that I should buy them.

 

So I feel screwed a lot, and also I can only say:  "Dont tocuh it".

Better grab your REST-APIs directly, CDATA is not worth it under such "all-or-nothing" business model.

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Rollo62

[David Schwartz 430]

It seems really hard to justify paying nearly the same price for a single "connector" as it costs to maintain Delphi, but if this doesn't even include the ability to distribute software you used it for, then it's a no-brainer. I guess they're more like EMBT in that they make most of their revenues from companies who just keep renewing their license fees every year just so they don't get caught with their pants down at some point because of a decision years earlier to use some of their products.