Volunteering for DelphiThe Delphi Spirit
Phillip Morris Peter Morris, a Delphi developer wrote on his former website -
They give, you take.
When you ask, they give nothing in return.
Which is what the Delphi community is about:
You give - you make the free VCLs, commercial software (then pirated and downloaded many times)
You give - you give your time to post thousands and thousands of posts on the newsgroup in unpaid work
You become a field tester and gradually graduate to field tester SysOp (or TeamB'er)
They take...
You ask for something in return:
You'll probably get no money from the newsgroup dustbins (e.g., href) who sell Google Ads
You'll probably get no financial help if you get into trouble,
You'll probably get no money at all.
Which is what the Delphi spirit is about.
They give, you take.
When you ask, they give nothing in return.
Which is what the Delphi community is about:
You give - you make the free VCLs, commercial software (then pirated and downloaded many times)
You give - you give your time to post thousands and thousands of posts on the newsgroup in unpaid work
You become a field tester and gradually graduate to field tester SysOp (or TeamB'er)
They take...
You ask for something in return:
You'll probably get no money from the newsgroup dustbins (e.g., href) who sell Google Ads
You'll probably get no financial help if you get into trouble,
You'll probably get no money at all.
Which is what the Delphi spirit is about.
7 comments:
That's not what I wrote at all.
That's not what I said at all!
Hi Peter,
Still remember your old website when you wanted to sell your old copy of Delphi?
Droopy Eyes -
This site is now closed
If you are interested in the source for any of my projects you may download them here:
FastStrings
�� deAudio
�� DIB Controls
�� Components for (Bold for Delphi)
If you wish to take ownership of any of these projects (must remain open-source) then please email me here: support at droopyeyes dot com.
Why is the site closing?
Simply because I no longer program using Delphi. I boot it up now and again to check what I am writing actually works when authoring ECO docs, but other than that I have not maintained any Delphi apps for 2 years, and haven't created a new app in Delphi for 4.
My involvement in Delphi over the last few years has been more of a community thing. I've helped in news groups, especially the ECO ones (Take a look, I am 3 of the all time top posters); written articles (not for the money, which was crap); written code for people + downloaded and fixed other people's code; done talks at user groups; spent a week preparing + producing a demo for the 24 hours of Delphi event; produced a few libraries that I have given away free of charge; and participated very actively in field tests for a product I have had no use for.
Well, recently I discovered that my relationship with Borland/CodeGear has been entirely one-way.
Despite the thousands of hours I have spent over the years (literally) performing actions beneficial to them when I came to ask for help all I got was an abrupt No. So, what did I want? I have had an old D7 architect box in the loft for years, unused because I have used to BTP license to do my community stuff.
Instead of throwing it in a skip I thought I'd find out if it was okay to resell it. At some point I had registered Delphi using that serial number (maybe I couldn't find my BTP serial, I don’t recall) so thought it would be best to check.
I contacted someone at CodeGear (whom I wont bother to name, but is well known and management position in the USA) who confirmed that it is okay, but I have to contact UK cust relations to arrange it. I also found the following:
13.5 Assignment. You may not transfer the Software media, assign this License or assign any of your rights or delegate any of your obligations under this License, by operation of law or otherwise (including by merger, sale of assets or consolidation), without Borland's prior written consent. Any attempted assignment in violation of this Section 13.5 will be void.
�� Finn Tolderlund gets a license transferred
�� John Kaster clearly states that Marc Hoffman is
spreading misinformation and that Delphi licenses
can be transferred.
So, all I need is permission right?
I felt as though I were on safe ground selling my old D7 on Ebay so I proceeded and it sold. Unfortunately after a week of chasing up UK customer relations I was told I could not transfer it. I contacted Nick Hodges to sort out this obvious misunderstanding and was told in no uncertain terms that I would not be given written permission to transfer the license.
So, after all the work I have done for this company
without any charge whatsoever they wont even give me permission to transfer a license that
1. I checked would be okay in advance
2. I can clearly see has been granted to other people
So is this all because I couldn't transfer a license? Not really, no. It’s about being treated with some respect. To be honest I can do without the money, I even stated when selling it that I'd be happy for £10 + the actual shipping costs just because I thought it was a shame to see it go into a land fill. Even if I were offered the opportunity to transfer the license now it would make no difference. I know where I stand. I only have a relationship with CodeGear as long as it is one in which I give and they take.
For example, when they wrote to me and asked if I would provide a product appraisal for Delphi 2006. I didn’t write to them, they asked me!
"Delphi 2006 is a pleasure to use," said Peter Morris, managing director, Air Software Ltd, a software development and consultancy company based in the UK. "Some of the new features are simple and easy to use, yet I wonder how I ever got by without them."
Source
This was 1 month before I started to use Visual Studio
Why don’t I use Delphi anyway?
Two years ago I was offered a nice job writing compact framework apps. Delphi couldn't do it so I had no choice other than to use VS2003. Well, I really quite liked VS2003 but I certainly didn’t love it. Then VS2005 came out and I migrated my app to .NET 2.0. Since I have become accustomed to using this development tool I just can’t face using Delphi any longer, it feels like writing code in notepad.
Visual Studio does so many nice things for me. Delphi has neglected their editor for years, Visual Studio 2005 on the other hand have done an excellent job. I wont go into details because there are just far too many. Needless to say I have written a complete list for CodeGear on more than one occasion.
Suffice to say that I have now moved onto pastures sufficiently greener. It’s not an illusion, I have been here for 2 years and still the features I use on a daily basis are significantly better than the newest features introduced in the latest version of Delphi.
My final switch happened only a couple of weeks ago when I rewrote my last Delphi app in C# in merely a week, an application that took me a few months in Delphi. With reflection + automatic memory management + safe code etc I found my application (which is heavily dependant on loading plugins at runtime) was simple to write and probably has only about 25% of the amount of lines of code.
Bye then...
I’ll not be doing anything that helps "BorGear" in the future, I’ve spent enough of my life working
without charge for people who only appreciate it as long as you give and they take.
This includes articles, newsgroup help, etc. The only exception to this is that I intend to write more docs for ECO, but that is an exception for 2 reasons
1. I want to help the very talented guys who write the product.
2. I want to continue using ECO in VS2005.
Pete
We are open, you can contact us and if you feel this part of your life, is time to move on, we'll remove this topic.
On the other hand, you can provide us with your frustrations to be aired anonymously. Our UK correspondent is quite happy to hear these complaints.
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