The future of the forum and QuickPDF

Hi to all!

First i don't want to write already today but Marian had written, too and so ...

Over a week ago i've had a longer skype-call with Marian.
We've talked about the future of QuickPDF and about his work for the library (and for us) ..

His statements were:
Too much work on the library and no (or only less) money for this.
He still wants to support with bugfixes but he need money for living, too.
He doesn't want to insert new enhancement into the library.
Perhaps he'll offer a special new version with a plugin-option. Who wants a special enhancement will pay for it and get it as a compiled version (perhaps as dll) which can be called from a library interface.

If we have great bugs we can send them to the known email-adress and Marian will fix them... But he needs money for doing this. I'll call this "sponsored bugfixing" ;-)

I've suggested to him to ask more developer of us for help. Marian answered that all developers have another kind of working and that it's not easy to keep such a team together.

I've ever thought that the forum here and all what we're doing here is for us... Every little help from one of us should be a big help for all of us...

My suggestions to us:
Marian is the only developer really deep into the library. So we should use "sponsored bugfixing" if we have important bugs.
If we're making some improvements on the library in our daily work we should post the code-lines again here in the  "Change Requests-section" - so all can gain.
If we need enhancements for the future we should try doing it like Chicks had done it for us/me with the AES 128 en-/decryption. So we can complete our library furthermore.
 
The problem are the two points of view ...
We want to make money with the products made by the help of the library - Marian want to make money with supporting the library. Both views should be okay i think ;-)

We're making money with the products... so there's no need to talk about it.
How Marian can make money with supporting pdf-libraries?
First: Developing an own library as one person seems impossible to me - we all know the story of QuickPDF and the iSED-team. This team was more than one person and they couldn't manage the support.
Marian's idea creating new separate enhancements which the users can buy
from him and which can be called from inside QuickPDF via a special
interface is a good idea 'cause the kernel of the library is the same for all.
Real bugs should be fixed by him in his library-sources. He can offer these bugfix-level for a service-fee. If people wait long to jump immediately on a high bugfix-level they should pay more.

In the general-section i've created a new poll how we are using the library. We can see already that most of us have solutions out in productive environments. Every day often there're six and up to ten users on the library the same time. Often more guests than members - we should hold these guests... and we're doing a serious job we can change these guests to members.

The situation like it is now is a very bad situation. We can't speak
from an actual version 'cause it's different for all of us with one or
more sponsored bugfixes. Marian should consider my ideas so that i can cool down again ;-)   I like this library very much and Marian wants to make money (me too)... and both is possible i think.

We're over 450 members here now. I hope that i can read a few answers/opinions here in this thread ;-)    To all of us : Over 450 members and always the same few users answering the questions?! It should be a give and a take... We don't need only questions... solutions are welcomed, too... Please, we all should be a bit more active here. Today one of us needs help - tomorrow we need help... We shouldn't forget this ;-)

Best regards,
Ingo

 

Ingo,

I am all for keeping it going.  I hope Marian is reading this.... please email me at lfeliz at krmrisk dot com with information on how I can purchase the source. I would like to do this prior to March 25th.    My real desire is to see if I can get library to work with FreePascal compiler.

 I would gladly pay upto $50 to $75 a year  for continued support and bug fixes. Perhaps $50 to Marian and $20 to this support group.

Another idea would be to price the library as follows:

Source  $500  (allows user to compile VCL and DLL possibly ActiveX )
VCL Only  $49
DLL Only  $49
ActiveX Only $49
2 of 3  $79
All three $99

Minor updates for one year included.
Version update within 6 months of purchase (no charge)

Binary Version upgrades $19  for single,  $29.  for 2/3 bundle,   $39 for all 3

Source Updates: Minor updates for one year included. Version upgrades $50.  

Use this forum for support, perhaps collect $20 per year per user.


- Lou

Hi Lou,

    Although I agree with your pricing suggestions, we would have to make the library a minimum of $95 (not $49) so that we can pay iSed back because that portion would be theirs.

    On top of that, then yes, we could charge for the improvements we made, or for support.

   Unfortunately, the foundation of the library still belongs to iSed.

    Cheers!

Okay.  I was thinking iSed would still be involved, but $95 is a good price for library to keep pricing simple.   Hopefully this will happen soon as I still would like to get a copy of sources.

(On another note.. Michel, you REALLY need to compact this DB or get it from Access to something like  SQL 2005 cuz it takes entirely too long to post.)

Edited by bone - 17 Mar 07 at 11:17AM

Hi Ingo,

Just to follow up. I don't think that the entire forum should be "commercial" or whatever you want to call it.

Sure, keep the tips and suggestions area open to the public.

I would suggest that only the new code / new versions / new bug fixes area be a place where everyone must "subscribe". You pay an annual fee. Michel keeps some for his costs. Contributing developers receive some for their time.


On the DB note, SQL 2005 Express is free from MS now and supports up to 4GB of data. If you are able to install it on your server Michel, it's going to WAY out preform the Access one I assume you're running now.

Yes, there are missing features in current library and in future there may be some more (also I personally believe that the PDF spec will not enhance much more the next time. More probably the XML version). But some of the problems can also be solved by having a public forum and some developers who spend some time they have. 
And the more public feedback we have here on the forum the more this library stays alive!

Marian, if you want to have a commercial version to earn money: ok but please do it in a way that doesn't have much negative impacts  for the one that doesn't want to go your way!


Ulrich

Hi!

My impression is more and more that both groups (Marian's customers and on the other hand the users who wants to keep the sources open) can't live side by side in this forum?

The sound is more and more rough here. I don't like it!

Do we need a fundamentally decision? Do we need a second forum? Who should change the forum? ...Or is a split of the forum into two parts the best for all? What do you think?

Best regards,
Ingo

Hi Bones,

    Yes, you are correct: it is an Access database. I will do a "repair and compact" today - although I am not sure how much that will help.

    I do not have access to the server to install new programs - the site is hosted with 1&1. I do have with my plan access to a single MS-SQL database, so I can transfer the forum over to that - which should improve the performance.

    Unfortunately, the transfer will not completely smoothly in that I have to set it up to also support my other forums and other projects that I have running too. It means that I have to rename all of the tables, and change the ASP code as a result.

    I am not 100% sure, but some of the "slowness" comes from sending the e-mails to the folks that have subscribed to receive e-mail notification. I also changed e-mail engine from CDOSYS (was giving errors) to ASP-Mail. I think the forum got slower when I did that.

    Anyway, to summarize - I am convinced, and I will transfer to MS-SQL very soon, maybe even next weekend.

    Cheers everyone!

Hi Bone,

    I have compacted the database. If I find the time next weekend, I will make the move to a Microsoft SQL Server database.

    Thanks for the suggestion.

Michel

Michel,

I'm not a lawyer, but do a good amount of legal work and contracts. But if you have to pose the question, you probably don't want to deal with the consequences.

From an international law stand point: I would say you don't have anything to reasonable fear as international civil law suits are VERY difficult and expensive. I highly doubt the company has much (if any) money, at least the amount to go after you. Now whether or not it is ethical is for you to decide.

The only reasonable fear that I could conceive of is that an American company purchases all rights to it, and then they go after you. I know our company made a very generous an offer a few years ago which feel on deaf ears.

We have jumped ship. I only visit this forum out of [morbid] curiosity.

The truth of the matter is, iSed is YEARS behind most other libraries. Consistently causes errors with 1.6 and 1.7 v PDF files.

We've jumped ship and haven't been happier. It's a big up front time commitment, but just something most people here near to accept. Granted no other solution seems to render as well as iSed, but it doesn't even do that that well, and we now use GS.

Personally, I think all of this is a lost cause, UNLESS they decide to come back with a hugely improved new version, which simply I don't see happening.

In any case, the service method is the only legal and safe route I can see you taking.

Hi Bone,

Thank you for your sensible reply. Although I feel 90% OK (ethically) of sending the money to iSed after selling their library, there are no means for me to ensure that the right owner received it. That, and not having the permission from iSed does not allow me to bridge the gap to the 100% I need to feel comfortable to carry out my suggestion.

Like your company, I made an offer to purchase the rights to the library. Probably not as generous as yours, but got no reply.

For PDF rendering, I use the FoxIt library: it's been good to me in terms of being accurate, and is by far the fastest rendering engine I have seen. I considered using GS, but the results were mixed: I would have to go to my notes to see what were the issues.

You mentioned you were happy with the new library that you are using. Can you tell me which library you switched to? Does it support digital signatures?

And thank you for your morbid curiosity. You are right: it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.



Edited by Michel_K17 - 19 Mar 07 at 6:52PM

    Yes, DynaPDF does support digital signatures (as you can see on my web site, I am a reseller), but only the PKCS#12 with a 1024 bit RSA encryption - which seems limiting. It is unfortunate that DynaPDF does not offer any rendering options as well, and it has not seen an update in a year (beyond the recent minor correction last week). However, the author is very friendly and responsive - so no issues there.

    My experience with FoxIt has been half good and half bad. On the half good, I was able to negotiate a license to generate renders for a one time fee with unlimited distribution rights. They compiled a special version of their library with a restriction on how big I can generate the picture - which was OK since I was using it to generate the "preview" feature in PDF reDirect.

    Afterwards, I contacted them to remove the limitation, again for an additional one time fee, and they agreed. But they stopped responding my e-mails to consumate the deal.

    I have recently been re-contacted by them, so I can see if they are more likely to play ball now.

    As for Artifex: how have they become more difficult to work with?

Yes, I had the same problem with Artifex too: they turned down my suggestion for royalty payments as an alternative to the $100K option. That was in 2003. Looks like it is not getting any better.

Thanks for the info.

Hi!
I only wanted to know what most are thinking and if the old way is okay for most of us. We've got these answers. I hope soon it's running again here... with more member postings about new code-enhancements, member bugfixes and so on...
Marian had done a lot for us and (who konws) perhaps he will do... and the polls were a bit dissappointing for him... so i've deleted them.
Best regards,
Ingo

Edited by Ingo - 23 Mar 07 at 2:29AM