How many people have abused your 'with source' purchase option?

Question

I'm interested in finding something out. In Delphi the default since the begining when buying components has been to be able to purchase them with source (even if it might be a slightly more expensive option). This made sense in Delphi for a number of reasons, firstly Borland led the way by providing the full source of the VCL with every install of Delphi, but also having the source was considered essential since when you upgraded Delphi you had to recompile and sometimes Authors went out of business.

I'm interested in finding out whether any Delphi component writers out there have ever had reason to regret selling their component 'with source'? Has someone tried to release a competing product based on your code, or passed it off as their own?

The reason I ask is because it still seems to be the exception rather than the norm to provide a 'with source' option when purchasing an ActiveX control or a .NET assembly. Maybe a reassurance that people don't want the source for nefarious purposes might convince more component writers to allow source code to be purchased along with the component.

Answer 1

I have personal experience with this. I used to sell a component and function library for Delphi (Clipper Functions for Delphi, AKA CFD); we went from version 1 in '96 to version 5 in 2000 when I took a job that wouldn't allow moonlighting. We had 5000+ registered users at the end; I still provide quite a few of them with free updates and occasional bug fixes.

I never had any reason whatsoever for not making source available. In fact, there was no option to purchase CFD without source. I wouldn't buy any commercial Delphi component library that my app would depend on without source, for the very reasons you cite (recompiling with new Delphi releases and vendors going away).

Answer 2

Unless the component writer is using some form of obfuscation the source for any .Net assembly can be obtained by using reflector.

I've used this on assemblies from Microsoft as well as other vendors to track down problems in their code. In some cases I went ahead and patched the problem and recompiled it; but do that at your own peril.

Answer 3

For all Delphi components which I developed over the past 10 years, full source code was always included. It would however be a big advantage to have a compatible binary (DCU) format (similar to Java and .NET) in Delphi for trial versions, or for low cost 'personal editions' - versions which do not attract the real commercial developers, because of the missing source code. Compiling DCUs for Delphi 5,6,7,2006, 2007 and 2009 is possible (if the Delphi licenses are there), but managing so many different code versions requires a lot of work for automatic build and packaging systems ...

Answer 4

I have an issue especially with .Net skinning libraries. I have found none good enough that would include the code for a fairly economic price. I'm talking about prices that go over the $1000USD price line, which I think it´s astronomic for a freelance developer, for just a piece of software. But, those things that are harder to implement in each language are the most expensive as well, so there is a relation between those two factores in the difficulty of implementing something similar your self. I know this is no answer for your question, but my own view of things.

Answer 5

I don't have personal experience with this, but I do know that source code watermarking is available and some vendors have used it. Not sure how successful it would be.

I have never heard news of anyone releasing a competing product with source code from another commercial vendor. It does however happen frequently with open source ones though.