Long term availability of Community Edition

[JkEnigma 0]

Hi all,

Currently, I am using Free Pascal but I realized that Delphi has several possibilities that would come in handy for me. I would like to give the Community Edition a try. However, I still remember using the free version of Borland Delphi which was discontinued after Delphi moved to CodeGear. That is a long time ago and Embarcadero is another company, but still...

Does anybody have information about the long term availability of the Community Edition? 

TIA

 

[Dalija Prasnikar 1396]

Just now, JkEnigma said:

Hi all,

Currently, I am using Free Pascal but I realized that Delphi has several possibilities that would come in handy for me. I would like to give the Community Edition a try. However, I still remember using the free version of Borland Delphi which was discontinued after Delphi moved to CodeGear. That is a long time ago and Embarcadero is another company, but still...

Does anybody have information about the long term availability of the Community Edition? 

There is no guarantee it will be available in the future. We can only hope it will be

[PeterBelow 238]

5 minutes ago, JkEnigma said:

Hi all,

Currently, I am using Free Pascal but I realized that Delphi has several possibilities that would come in handy for me. I would like to give the Community Edition a try. However, I still remember using the free version of Borland Delphi which was discontinued after Delphi moved to CodeGear. That is a long time ago and Embarcadero is another company, but still...

Does anybody have information about the long term availability of the Community Edition? 

TIA

 

It's difficult to make predictions, especially if they concern the future :). What may be important to know for you is this, however:

The licence for the community edition cannot be renewed; if you need to install it on a new computer you need to get a new licence key, which is no problem, however.

When a new Delphi/RAD Studio version comes out there is also a new community edition, usually available after a short delay. The previous version's community edition is then no longer available and you cannot get new licence keys for it anymore, so have to move to the latest edition if your old licence expires (it is limited to 1 year if memory serves).

[David Heffernan 2345]

If anybody can tell us about the long term availability of the community edition would they also be so kind as to tell me about the long term availability of me. 

[PeterBelow 238]

2 hours ago, David Heffernan said:

If anybody can tell us about the long term availability of the community edition would they also be so kind as to tell me about the long term availability of me. 

Well, there are heaps of sites that claim to do just that, just google for "life expectancy calculator"

[Remy Lebeau 1394]

6 hours ago, PeterBelow said:

When a new Delphi/RAD Studio version comes out there is also a new community edition, usually available after a short delay.

I would not call it a "short" delay.  It is actually a considerable delay.  I can't find exactly when 10.3 CE was released, but 10.2 CE was released 16 months after 10.2 was released, and 10.4 CE was released 14 months after 10.4 was released.  Now 11.0 was released 3 months ago and we are going to wait how long for a 11.0 CE release?  They tend to release a new CE either after several Updates have been released first, or just-before/long-after the next major version release.

Quote

The previous version's community edition is then no longer available and you cannot get new licence keys for it anymore, so have to move to the latest edition if your old licence expires (it is limited to 1 year if memory serves).

Also, it should be noted that even when a new CE version is not released, the CE license expires annually, so you have to keep reinstalling the latest CE every year to continue using it.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Remy Lebeau

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

1 hour ago, Remy Lebeau said:

They tend to release a new CE either after several Updates have been released first, or just-before/long-after the next major version release.

IIRC, they want to keep the CE always one major version behind the recent one.

[JkEnigma 0]

Thanks for the answers. Clearly, there are some drawbacks.

I just installed the CE and intend to do a small project. I hope the advantages outweigh the drawbacks.

My main reason is to be able to use Spring4D, so I will give that a try.

[JamieR 3]

For me, I used the community edition to develop apps that pay for non-free. I don't mind paying for software if it helps me run my business. It's my guess community edition will be a thing for the future of Delphi. Without it, it would limit new users. I don't think Embarcadero want to do that.

[Rinzwind 26]

A concern is also when they decide to not renew the CE and stop offering it. You're license will expire and it's bye bye software. Anyway, its a half hearted effort and they already questioned its future before because it "interfered with business..." which says everything about their mindset. They still supplied an update afterwards but who says for how long. They certainly want small indy's to pay full price. Why not introduce an indy edition? Afraid of freelancers. Seem they can't make up their mind and keep going the old overcharge old timers who use old editions anyway way aka legacy business...

Edited December 10, 2021 by Rinzwind

[limelect 48]

All my Delphi are with license. At a certain point, I downloaded D7 ( after having new versions) (I had D6) many years ago

and I still use it , although I moved on.

At a certain point, Borland/Embarcadero gave away old Delphi for free with license.

 

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

4 hours ago, Rinzwind said:

because it "interfered with business..." which says everything about their mindset.

You mean "This company must earn money!"? Indeed, that way of thinking is somewhat spreading out during the last few years...

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

When you compare the MS VS CE to the EMBT RAD CE, the latter looks ridiculous.

[Sherlock 663]

51 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

When you compare the MS VS CE to the EMBT RAD CE, the latter looks ridiculous.

When you compare Embarcaderos product portfolio with Microsofts you should notice some ridiculous differences as well. You just can't make that much money on selling IDEs or developer tools alone. Please get real. Office Suites alone generate a much higher income, add an OS to that and giving away an IDE for practically nothing seems to barely make a dent in the profits.

[PeterBelow 238]

58 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

When you compare the MS VS CE to the EMBT RAD CE, the latter looks ridiculous.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that for MS developer tools are not the major part of their business by far, so the comparison is a bit unfair.

[JamieR 3]

You can't compare Visual Studio and RAD Studio. They solve different problems. The later is an Object Pascal IDE (with C++ support for RTL, VCL etc). I don't use RAD Studio for C++ so can't comment there. I use Visual Studio for C++ projects.

 

Why are people so intent on sticking to free? If you want to learn object pascal you don't need RAD Studio. If want to use VCL, Firemoney and their RTL then of course you pay for this if you're making money from their tools. They give you a free version that you can make up to $5,000 with. Folks, that's really not difficult to make that money when you become more skilled.

 

I sell software, and I can fully appreciate Embarcadero's business model. I don't think the hate towards Embarcadero is very fair. The obvious alternative is Lazurus, which is also great.

 

Just to also reiterate, why would Embarcadero kill a model that generates new paying users? It would be silly to kill free. They will not do that.

Edited December 10, 2021 by JamieR

[JkEnigma 0]

2 hours ago, JamieR said:

You can't compare Visual Studio and RAD Studio. They solve different problems. The later is an Object Pascal IDE (with C++ support for RTL, VCL etc). I don't use RAD Studio for C++ so can't comment there. I use Visual Studio for C++ projects.

 

Why are people so intent on sticking to free? If you want to learn object pascal you don't need RAD Studio. If want to use VCL, Firemoney and their RTL then of course you pay for this if you're making money from their tools. They give you a free version that you can make up to $5,000 with. Folks, that's really not difficult to make that money when you become more skilled.

 

I sell software, and I can fully appreciate Embarcadero's business model. I don't think the hate towards Embarcadero is very fair. The obvious alternative is Lazurus, which is also great.

 

Just to also reiterate, why would Embarcadero kill a model that generates new paying users? It would be silly to kill free. They will not do that.

I agree with your point of view. I intend to use Delphi only for open source/free software so I will never reach the $5K threshold, no problem with that. And indeed, FP/Lazarus is a good alternative: I used it for some time. But it has some drawbacks that I hope to solve with Delphi. The price tag for RAD Studio might be relatively high but that should not be a problem for a software company or a freelancer making commercial software. And if you're not making money with your software, the CE comes in quite handy 🙂  .  My main concern was a possible policy change regarding the availability of the CE. But indeed, if the CE would be discontinued that would stop a lot of people that would give Delphi a try. So there is probably a good reason for Embarcadero to continue the CE.

[Guest]

I wonder if other licensing ideas/approaches might help Embarcadero. I notice JetBrains after some some poorly received attempts seems to have landed on a decent model for part of their licensing - different prices for the paid version based on if it's purchased by and for an individual vs purchased by a business. Hard to know if sales of lower priced versions for individuals would bring in more than sales of the current higher priced versions to individuals would lose. My guess is there is a decent amount of individual developers on the CE edition or older versions of Delphi for who the current prices are an impediment especially year after year. I know when I worked less in Delphi I stopped upgrading all the way from Delphi XE until Delphi 10.2 due to the price. 

 

 

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

On 12/10/2021 at 8:43 PM, JamieR said:

The obvious alternative is Lazurus, which is also great.

The generics in Lazarus is even more gimped than Delphi's generics.  Not a viable alternative, IMO.

[TimCruise 2]

Long term availability of a free community version depends on the long term availability of rich commercial customers who buy the expensive commercial versions.