Investment-Protection (QuickPdf source)
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Category: For Users of the Library
Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Description: Discussion board for Debenu Quick PDF Library and Debenu PDF Viewer SDK
URL: http://www.quickpdf.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=835
Printed Date: 22 Nov 24 at 11:06PM
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Investment-Protection (QuickPdf source)
Posted By: HarryS
Subject: Investment-Protection (QuickPdf source)
Date Posted: 17 Dec 07 at 11:19AM
Hi there,
the main reason for buying the source of a library is investment protection, because there are a lot of reasons for libraries dissapearing from the market.
The next reason is to have at least the chance to solve problems and trace the bug to put the finger on it.
After 15 years software development, I know what I'm talking about.
7 Month with no upcomnig V5.22 and no enhancements to the source based on V5.21, I fixed all problems, my customers sent to me (primarly rendering isues).
- Added basic pattern-support.
- Replaced uPDFGDIPlus.pas with object based Open Source API-Wrapper.
- Added case sensitive and insensitive search for keys in catalog.
- Fixed some render-exceptions.
For me, my source is working fine, no problems.
Now the question : Are the owner of source code interested in an exchange of knowlege like it was before (Marian)? Please get me right. I'm talking only about source code owners because for the rest will be happy with the support of Marian. I dont want two version of the library.
Marian (I think it was mainly Marian) did a great work and I hope he will bring up his own library. But as long he is only talking about, or I cannot buy the source thats no solution for me and I wont bring me in dependence from anybody I can't tell how long he exists.
Sorry Marian.
Feel free to answer.
with best regard
HarryS
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Replies:
Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 17 Dec 07 at 2:00PM
To all!
I've talking (writing/reading) with Harald about it before and i've suggested to him to post his view about the things. My view is very similar and i'll appreciate it if we can blow new life in this forum. We should do more in the source section and again (from time to time) uploading new compiled versions. What i've missed since a long time now is code sharing a la "look, i've done it this way...".
There're few building sites in QuickPDF:
No support for pdf-specs 1.6, 1.7, ...
Textextraction
Rendering
In the case "rendering" Harald has made a big step ahead and he wants to participate us - generous i think!
...And i can imagine that there are others making a big step in another part of QuickPDF...
For all this things the source section could be an easy platform. We're not too many - i think we don't need more than this forum.
The iSED-team seems to be (online-)dead since two years now ... From this direction there'll not come any trouble in this case. So waiting for what? If WE're still using this software we should support US - One for all and all for one ;-)
What's the common meaning here in this case?
What about Harald and my suggestions?
Are there other suggestions?
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: swb1
Date Posted: 17 Dec 07 at 2:44PM
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I agree with Harald. I have to own the source to every 3rd party component I use. I bought the source before there where group purchases on this forum. I paid full price ($500) and would happily do it again. I consider it cheep insurance. I cannot use version 5.22 because I do not have the source. I consider it unfortunate that we cannot form a paid support group that could support Marian’s efforts in a way that would make it possible for him to keep us (the source code licensees) up to date and still pay his bills.
I use QuickPDF mainly for text extraction and rendering and I am willing to pursue bugs I find in areas that affect my products. When I’ve found/fixed bugs in the past I would post the changes in this forum. Most recently: http://www.quickpdf.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=821 - http://www.quickpdf.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=821 . I intend to continue doing this. When I do this other source owners may freely adopt my changes at there own discretion. I don’t guarantee anything as I am not fluent in the PDF specification
As far as organizing and presenting these fixes for the entire forum (including non-source owners) I have to admit that I am not willing to invest that kind of time for no pay. I admire Marian’s willingness to do so.
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 17 Dec 07 at 2:58PM
Hi Steve!
You've written "... not willing to invest that kind of time for no pay ...". If there's more life in the source section perhaps you can get help from others, too. Sometimes you give and sometimes you get... Am i a dreamer ;-)
It's not the same... Marian didn't need the library. He did bugfixing in his rare free time (thanks again for it!). We all here are users - a smalll code snippet means less effort for one but all can gain and if this are not always the same users it can be a good way.
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: Michel_K17
Date Posted: 17 Dec 07 at 11:08PM
I too purchased the source code for my "protection", and I am sure am
glad that Marian fixed the bugs that were causing me grief.
With respect to what Harald proposed: I would personally be OK with creating a
fork for the source code, and taking Harald's changes as well as
Steve's (swb1) to create a new base going forward beside Marian's own
closed path.
An alternative is for us to pay Marian to incorporate the best of his
changes as well as any other offerings. For example, we are 650 forum
members. If we could get 10% (65) to pay 100€, that would amount to
6500€. How much would Marian be willing to do for that sum? We might get more people to participate as new versions become available.
Finally, one last alternative is to charge for incremental changes. For
example, 10€ for a minor version change (v5.22 to v5.23), and 50€ for a
major revision change which adds new features.
Although I am not a huge fan of polls, how about this for a question?
Which of the following options would you choose:
- Create a source code fork. Fork #1: improvements (with source code) which consists of only free submissions by unpaid contributors and Fork #2: the current path with improvements from Marian (with no source code).
- I am willing to pay 10€ for minor upgrades and 50€ for new features in order to sponsor programmers to make bug fixes and improvements to this library. Payment will be required to access the download link.
- I am willing to make annual payments of 100€ to finance a fund to sponsor programmers to make imrprovements to the source code. I understand that I will not be able to download the latest compiled or source code version of the library unless I contribute to the fund.
- Do nothing.
Comments? Also, we can discuss how much the amounts should be before I post this as a poll that members can vote on.
Cheers!
-------------
Michel
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 1:36AM
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Hi!
The problem Harald is speaking from is that Marian is only one person. The iSED-team were more persons but we all know what happened...
We're 650 forum-members but only few are source-owners and only less are posting here from time to time - I don't think that we'll get enough money for Marian.
The source-users are source-users 'cause they want an insurance - a compiled fix from Marian isn't an insurance.
If today someone has a problem here the problem-description included with problem-files are going our support-adress (Marian) and we all will never see a solution or workaround - that's not the right way a community like our forum should work.
For me your point "1. fork #1" is still the best. We should use the source-section - we're only few ... we don't need more.
Your point "3." is okay, too but we had this question at the beginning of 2007 and you know that nothing happened - Marian was the only one and he don't wanted.
As long as we're discussing about sources i'll agree with all suggestions.
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: pschott
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 3:30AM
Hi!
1. I am happily that it in this forum a couple of people as well as Ingo gives.
Give and take without financial goals, only the problem solution stands in the foreground.
so it must go on in this project.
2. Because of the closed source version of Marian I use yet the original version with my changes.
Without source, an use is unakzeptabel.
3. Great that it with HarryS once again one that does not give thinks of its own advantage.
4. Possibly we should think about over subversion or we need someone who is generating quarterly an version.
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Posted By: HarryS
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 9:54AM
Please don't missunderstand me.
I'm talking about source code owners (sco), who are able to do
improvements / bugfixes because there is a need for them to do that,
keeping the library alive for THEIR needs. It would be great if we
could share these improvements with all sco's. But nobody can request a
bugfix from anybody.
And I cannot and will not provide all compiled types of library to the community. a professional toolbox needs professional payment.
And for 100€ - theory : If every user pays (no pay, no updates) we have round about one man-year for a expert programmer. Maybe Marian can tell his exact plan. But for me for the next two years the library without source is a NoNo.
@pschott : My advantage is : Having the source alive, maybe. And I'm hopfully not alone.
Let's start a source owner fork. Because as far as I can see, Marian started the support for the libarary user. Can somebody count how many we are?
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 10:42AM
Hi Harald!
All users with a password for the source-section... ;-)
If i think it over perhaps 50 users here have a source license.
From this group perhaps 15... up to 20 are reading/posting here in a regularly way. I've got two modified units from Percy (uPDFFontRasterizer and uPDFExtractor). I'll compare them with my last versions and then i'll send all units to you for your improvements and then we should upload it in the source section for all source owners. Perhaps then there are other users willing to share their improvements, too.
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: swb1
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 12:05PM
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Haralds comments reflect my opinion so well that I am hard pressed to think f anything to add.
I will add that what Harald said "...Marian started the support for the library user" is true. Moreover, no one else here can assist with that support as long as Marian keeps the source closed. That library is his and anybody else who wants to use it, but I cannot.
I don't wish to sound ungrateful for Marian efforts, in fact quite the opposite. Sincere thanks for all Marian has done. I believe it's time for the SCOs in the forum to move forward.
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 18 Dec 07 at 4:37PM
Hi!
We'll start again with "our" last open version 5.21 here again. Free for all source users. It will be a success if the source users are willing to share their improvements with others... It could be so easy ;-)
The other things ( a compiled version from time to time and so on) you can keep in our hands (Michel and mine).
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: krom
Date Posted: 19 Dec 07 at 10:34AM
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I think that QuickPDF must be OPEN-SOURCE LIBRARY!!!
So, we'll get bug fixes and updates from all the world.
IMHO.
I cannot pay money to user that decide that he itself the owner of the existing source code.
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Posted By: swb1
Date Posted: 19 Dec 07 at 10:54AM
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Krom,
There are a couple of errors/misconceptions in your post.
1. QuickPDF cannot be open-source. Copyright laws prevent that. People who already own rights to the source code have the right to make changes.
2. There is nobody here who clams to own the current source. There may be people here who do not wish to just give-away their significant efforts in updating or improving the current code set.
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Posted By: pschott
Date Posted: 19 Dec 07 at 7:56PM
only some thoughts because of this only in my first language German.
Ein paar gedanken von mir (just thougth so there in my main language German)
Ich habe mich für diese Libary entschieden da sie für wenig Geld einen Leistungsumfang bietet
die andere nicht haben (abgesehen von Adobe die aber damals üeber 20.000€ gekostet hätte).
Für mich (und meine Firma für dich ich arbeite und das Produkt für das ich verantwortlich zeichne
, ein wahres schnäpchen)
Die sache fing gut an. (kein probleme mit irgendwelchen PDF Dateien)
Sämtliche PDF Dateien konnte mein Programm (Sarke DMS und ein paar OEM's von Firmen in Süd- und Norddeutschland gut verarbeiten (Kassel ist nun mal die Mitte;-)).
Nach und nach kam hier und da ein PDF File der nicht funktioniert hatte (Textextraction und Rendering to Image), da ich
vorher schonmal die Spezifikationen von Adobe "durchgeackert hatte" dämmert es mir das diese Lib nicht alles abdeckte.
Kein Problem dachte ich habe ja(meine Firma) 500€ bezahlt die(ISED) machen das schon!:-(
Mitlerweile beschäftige ich mit dem Adobe Spezifaktionen mehr als mir lieb ist.
Wobei mein Ziel ist gegen Docuware,Easy,Saperium und ELo anzustinken (and we win).
(Das ist der Grund warum ich recht zurückhaltend in diesem Forum bin, nun lass ich die Hosen runter).
Hier geht es um eine Lib die für professionelle Entwickler, unabhängig von Adobe, nach meiner Meinung am Leben erhalten
werden muss!
Ingo hat die ein oder andere Änderung von mir erhalten (ich weiss nicht viel, aber besser als gar nichts (Spezifakton von Adobe sind der Horror)).
Irgendwan fing Marian an Fehler in der Lib zu beheben von den ich nicht betroffen war (nice for me), dann wollte ich auf 5.21 (ich hatte meine Änderungen von 5.14 implementiert) updaten.
Entschuldige Marian aber ich musste wieder auf 5.14 mit meinen kleinen Änderungen zurück (RenderToImage was no way by you (MainFeature on QuickPdfLib)).
Diese Fehler sollten angeblch in 5.22 nicht mehr vorhanden sein, allerdings benötige ich die SOurcen der Lib da ich mit meiinem Kopf
dafür gerade stehe das ich auch in Zukunft fehler beheben kann und ich sage dir hier ganz deutlich so wie du in diesem Forum angefangen hast warts du Willkomen, mitlerweile
bin ich der Meinung mach deinen eigenen Teil und begebe ich die Gefahr der Regressforderungen von dem Souerceeigentümer (Ich bin es nicht
ich darf lediglich die Sourcen ändern und mit anderen austauschen, aber kein Geld für meine Änderungen verlangen).
Sämtliche Änderungn die ich an der Lib vornehme werde ich demnächst in diesem Forum posten (passierend auf der demnächst erscheinenden Version,
nach meiner Meinung 6.0SCO (klare abgrenzung zwischen Licensed Source Code and other)), auch wenn ich der Meinung bin, dass wir
unbedingt subversion (my favorite tool) benötigen um die Lib für professionelle Entiwckler am Leben zu erhalten und/oder (hoffentlich) featuring voranzutreiben.
Ein Gedanke von einem profesionellen Entwickler
(Ich verdiene mein Geld mit meinen Ideen und bin 38 Jahre alt (also in der It-Brance kurz vor der Rente)).
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 20 Dec 07 at 2:04AM
Hi Percy!
This hits me down ... I'm 47 :-))
To all users without knowledge of the german language:
Percy has written about his way to QuickPDF.
He is responsible for a main product of his company and this product is mainly based on QP.
Until today he has got few more knowledges about the hard to understand adobe specifications and he has made several modifications in his version 5.14 of QP.
Little time ago he wants to change to the last open version of Marian and he can't. Marian has changed a lot... some sequences, too... and so Percy had to go back to his version 5.14.
Percy tells us that a compiled version (like 5.22) can't be a solution for him as a professional developer.
Percy announced that he wants to post all his modifications in the near future here in our forum. QP is still his (mine, too) favourite library and he wants to keep it alive.
Best regards,
Ingo
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Posted By: grahl
Date Posted: 20 Dec 07 at 11:55AM
Hi HarryS, hi source owners,
we (me and Ulrich - ukobsa) are in a similar situation. We use the library primarily for PDF manipulation and creation, not for rendering. Ulrich has fixed a couple of bugs, added some performance improvement and some features here and there in our internal QuickPDF source.
We'd be happy to share our changes in some way, but I'm not sure how such a way could look like. For small fixes and changes, an easy way would be to just document the source changes, and it would be up to every single source owner to implement them in his own code, or not. I think this worked for some small changes in the beginning of this forum. But I'm not sure if this would also work for more complex changes and with everyone's source base becoming more and more different. Having an 'official', shared source would be nice, but how realistic is it to get there and to keep that? In the past, in this forum, it didn't work. Changes have to be approved and consesus has to be built on what to add in which way. For us, an 'official', shared, but not really supported source couldn't be more than a template to copy changes from. Might work well for some time, but then...?
I'd also be happy to find someone offering to fix or extend QuickPDF in *my* code, and getting paid for it. I would also share such fixes/extensions with others who also contribute in a similar way. Unfortunately, this is blank theory, because nobody offered such service yet.
-Oliver
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Posted By: HarryS
Date Posted: 20 Dec 07 at 12:45PM
Hello everybody,
although the most sco's seem to be located in germany, I'll try it in English too : Welcome to the "IT mummy club"!
Some facts : I'm 45 years old, the last 15 years I spent mainly with Delphi and Oracle, writing database applications for the industry.
We use the library more for viewing than for manipulating documents, but we do (in some special way => catalog entries).
Bringing the source together :
I hope everybody have testcases/documented for their changes they made. So if we start e.g. based on my code, we should be able to add changes step by step and sco by sco. If we complete one round of fixes, we should have a beta-roll-out and very sco must test the library if it is still working for his needs. Could be lot of work, but no other way will bring us forward.
I think the main reason for no offer till now is, that everybody uses the library different. If somebody claims 'Oh my form fields do not work, sometimes!', you don't have a chance to find the problem in a defined time. So paying can be very expensive, if e.g. I'll first have to write an test-application to reproduce the problem.
@grahl : Maybe we should discuss the problem by phone ...
Ask Ingo for contact ...
And now before I go offline for this year :
Merry Christmas and a happy new year ...
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Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 11 Jan 08 at 5:47PM
Hello!
Still few days and i hope we can upload new sources version 6.00 (with modifications from Harald and Percy) for testing for all source-license-members.
Stay tuned!
Best regards and a happy weekend,
Ingo
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