Want more IntraWeb Source?

Want more IntraWeb Source?

We would like to ship more IntraWeb source code. We have a few obstacles though, and here is what you can do to help.

Why We Did Not Ship Source

IntraWeb has actually been around for over 10 years if you include its predecessors before it. IntraWeb as most people know it became popular in 2001. However it is a direct descendant of the code in previous products known as Web Solution Builder (WSB) and and even more ancient name Portcullis. A few IntraWeb users have been with us long enough to remember these.

The Delphi market in those years was very different and many competitors, both commercial and individuals have at various times attempted to clone IntraWeb, with at least one “group” (no, not one of the commercial competitors) trying to reverse engineer IntraWeb actively. This was the main reason we did not ship source.

With the changes in the Delphi market, and the market position of IntraWeb, this is no longer a major concern of ours.

Source Purchase

Source has alwas been available for an additional purchase and withthe signing of an NDA. Some customers have taken advantage of thisoffer.

However we purposefully kept this to a limited number. Withlimited numbers of source code users, leaks can be fairly easily detected. Expanding this number to even a hundred let alone tens of thousands makes users generally anonymous.

Today’s Obstacle

Today’s obstacle to shipping full source is piracy. IntraWeb still appears on warez sites today, but because of our frequent release schedule and the need for each release to generally be hand cracked, warez versions typically are older versions and users cannot rely on receiving bug fixes in a timely manner.

Shipping source however changes that dynamic very quickly, enabling warez builds to appear within hours. We are actively seeking suggestions from our user base how to distribute more source code while still preventing rampant warez distributions.

One idea we have considered is shipping more source, but not all. But the balance is a hard one to manage, and there would always be that artificial barrier restricting the number of units that we could ship. We do not feel this is a workable solution and are seeking your ideas.