We have found the limitations of Saxon-HE (see table) at the point of using Extensibility using reflexion and EXSLT extension function.
We are evaluating to purchase few licenses for the servers and development team members and we are short of time to evaluate every tool, considering that purchasing and distributing the license will also consume our time.
Apparently there is a previous version of Saxon called Saxon-B that saxonica is not longer maintaining but it claims to support Extensibility using reflexion and according to this Q&A supports EXSLT too.
My question is, could we stick with Saxon-B (an open-source solution) for those features mentioned or should we purchase those licenses?
Finally I am replying myself.
We have given a try to Saxon-B during last few days and it works perfectly for the needs we have (mentioned in the question). We have not found any minor/major bug so far.
Thanks Saxonica team for keeping available as open-source the Saxon-B version.
Edit: Saxon-B is no longer compatible with Java 8 and above.
Related
I have several iOS enterprise apps that had been developed years ago, and some of the earlier ones contain elements that Apple has deprecated, such as UIWebView.
My question is, after Apple has stopped supporting deprecated elements, will these elements continue to work in existing applications? Or will I need to go in and update the deprecated elements in all the apps in order to maintain functionality?
When Apple deprecates an API, it means that they intend to stop supporting that API in the future.
Sometimes this is because the API is no longer useful or is flawed (creates a security hole, for example), but it's typically because it has been superseded by a superior API and Apple is encouraging you to adopt the new API.
Existing applications running on existing operating systems will, naturally, continue to function.
When Apple is replacing one API with another they will typically maintain the legacy (deprecated) API for as long as practical. So your app is likely to run on at least the next few major versions of the operating system.
Apple also tries to avoid forcing you to choose a new API because that complicates development since you now have to support two APIs in your application if you want it to be compatible with earlier versions of the OS. (Of course, if you want the features of the new API today, you don't have many choices: either support both APIs or limit the OS versions your app can run on.)
How long is on a case-by-case basis. A security flawed API might be removed in the next OS. On the other end of the scale you have string encoding APIs that have been deprecated for almost a decade (because they can't properly handle all Unicode conversion cases), yet they are still included in the framework and still function as advertised.
On high-profile classes like UIWebView, I would expect it to continue to work for years to come, but it won't be improved or get any of the new features of WKWebView. So, over time, it will look and act more and more dated. How important that is to your app is a subjective decision for your development.
I believe it depends on the user's OS version on their device. If the OS no longer supports the deprecated elements, then you may notice an error similar to the one below:
"[Appname] needs to be updated"
I have to document main configuration related features that are present in wildfly 10 but not in 8.2 (as we are moving from 8.2 to 10).
I am trying to find the feature documentation but all I find is admin and developer guide. To find the difference between two versions, I have to compare guides of both of these two version, which may take some time.
Can any body suggest me some faster way to do this.
Many Thanks in advance.
Rahul
There are likely some blog posts on some highlights at wildfly.org. You could also run a JIRA release notes report. Other than that it just depends on what kinds of differences you're looking for.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Delphi developers has several tools (several alternatives to ASP.NET) for building web applications.
While No.1 framework is Intraweb, there is a lot of interest around ExtJS, that has 2 incarnations:
1) the opensource ExtPascal
2) the closedsource Raudus
Now the products are different, Raudus never supports the latest ExtJS version (while ExtPascal does because as far as I read it "almost automatically updates itself to the latest ExJS version"), Raudus "seems" much RAD (much similar to Intraweb from the RAD point of view).
Anyway why chose one or the other?
Why Raudus (since it is free) cannot become Open Source? Or does Raudus use ExtPascal behind the scenes?
Comment: uniGUI seems at first sight to combine the good part of Raudus (the RAD part) and ExtPascal (being based on extPascal).
Talking about Raudus, I'd be careful! You can download it for free, indeed. I was about to start using it when I realized there's no single word on its usage license. There's no license in fact, or I was unable to find it under "standard" locations (website? no. installer? no. README / LICENSE file? no.)
Thus I'd be careful with using library which doesn't specify it's license. Especially if you're about to start some project which will use it intensely - just imagine what happens when it comes out that you need to pay big amount of money for using it ...
Why use any of them? RAD in the form of Intraweb and tools like it, is not appropriate for web programing. It doens't separate the GUI from bussines logic well. In other words there is no true MVC approach there. Maybe ExtPascal is different here, but the point is elsewhere.
ExtJS is a very well written RAI JS library. It feels almost like putting blocks of code together in a very object oriented way. You can easily build whole GUI with ExtJS without any backend support. This way your whole GUI is in javascript files and no backend is needed. Backend only processes the ajax call and provides data / processes data. This way you have a clear separation of concerns.
This can be easily done without any frameworks. Yes framework would come in handy but it would have to be done in a ASP.NET MVC or Ruby on Rails way. No RAD and no visual designers. New web developers often make those mistakes. But if you program for the web long enough you come to appreciate the separation of GUI and logic and the simplicity of HTML. Web programming is different from desktop programming at least to a degree.
To answer your question. From what I have seen, I like ExtPascal better. It seems a purer web development tool than Raudus. But I admit I have only seen both from the surface and from demo videos, so I cannot judge, only speculate :)
The Raudus developer put up a new blog post in late October and claims, well I'll let you read the snippet for yourself:
"Raudus license is freeware as written in license.txt. You CAN use Raudus in commercial projects. Raudus sources are not available yet."
Edit: There is a license statement at the bottom of the http://www.raudus.com/ page.
"License
Raudus is freeware. You can freely use Raudus for commercial purposes."
As to contacting the author, try this from the same page: E-mail: igor#klopov.com
After using Raudus for a few months I decided to post my own answer.
The framework is improving, Sencha touch support now it is not complete but sufficient to create usable web applications optimized for mobile devices.
RFE, a new front end, not based on Sencha Touch is under developement and in next Raudus release (that should be out soon) there will be a usable preview of the new controls set.
So while ExtPascal seems frozen, Raudus is in progress and promising.
Update: I stopped using Raudus, it dropped ExtJs support and now it ships with own controls, that will never match the beauty and richness of extjs components. I am now going for IW + cgdevtools components that are Jquery UI for IW.
user193655 --> Depending on what you do be carefull with both approaches. I am really a big fan on Delphi or Freepascal/Lazarus - I am not very certain if the approach of bringing 3GL bindings to the Javascript stuff is wise.
MVC - depending on what you do - in PHP you have the Yii Framwork or Prado. Maybe the second has some ideas from .net built in which are very easy to understand by Delphi developers. PRADO is an event driven approach while YII Framework is absolutely cool and unix like.
After using Raudus it seems that it is not practical for large scale of applications.
According to their documentation and I have also sampled, it serializes all client request into single main thread. However it process client request and response generation part in multi-threaded enviornment.
But main thread issue is quite important as it directly impact the response time if one action is taking more time in the main thread, others will keep waiting.
Any suggestions to resolve this issue?
Raudus:
Relies upon Delphi, in which:
Is verbose;
Relies upon Microsoft Windows;
High-cost to adapt to or to maintain;
Quote from raudus.com: "Raudus is freeware. You can freely use Raudus for commercial purposes. Raudus sources are not available yet." — This, to me, will be never a license. On the homepage, simply there is no documentation about Terms of Service or something like that. Hence I won't deal with their services.
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Closed 9 years ago.
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I am looking a tool for protect and licensing my commercial software, Ideally must provide an SDK compatible with Delphi 7-2010, support AES encryption, Keys generator and capacity to create trial editions of my application.
I am currently evaluating ICE License. Someone has experience with this software?
Here's my list of software protection solutions. I'm looking at switching from ASProtect to another protection so I'm also in the process of analyzing most of these programs:
Themida (Oreans)
http://www.oreans.com/products.php
There are unpacking tutorials for all the versions of Themida. There is however the possibility of requesting "custom" builds which might help avoid this.
Code Virtualizer (Oreans)
http://www.oreans.com/products.php
Allows to protect specific parts of the application with a Virtual Machine. A cracker on a forum said he "made a CodeUnvirtualizer to fully convert Virtual Opcodes to Assembler Language".
EXECryptor
Very difficult to unpack. GUI does not work under Vista. Appears to no longer be developed.
ASProtect
Small protection overhead. Appears to no longer be developed.
TTProtect - $179 / $259
13 MB download. Chinese developer. Adds about xxx overhead to the exe.
http://www.ttprotect.com/en/index.htm
VMProtect - $159 / $319 (now $199/$399)
http://www.vmprotect.ru/
10 MB download. Russian developer. Seems to be updated frequently. Supports 32 and 64-bit. Uncrackable according with one exetools post, but there seems to be an unpacking tutorial already.
Enigma Protect - $149
http://enigmaprotector.com/en/home.html
7 MB download. Russian developer. Regarded as very difficult to crack. Adds about xxx overhead to the exe.
NoobyProtect - $289
http://www.safengine.com/
10.5 MB download. Chinese developer. Regarded as very difficult to crack. Adds about 1.5 MB overhead to the exe.
ZProtect - $179
http://www.peguard.com
RLPack
http://www.reversinglabs.com/products/RLPack.php
KeyGen already available.
One thing to note is that the more protection options you enable on the software protector, the bigger the possibility of the protected file being flagged by an anti-virus as a false-positive. For example, on Themida, checking the option to encrypt the file, will most likely create a few false-positives by a few anti-virus programs.
I'll update this answer once I get more replies from a hackers forum where I asked some questions about these tools.
And finally, don't use the build-in serial number/license management of these tools. Although they might be more secure than using your own, you will be tied up to that specific tool. If you decide to change software protection in the future, you will also have to manage all the customer keys transfer to a new system.
Don't bother. It's not worth the hassle. Only a perfect licensing system would actually do you any good, and there's no such thing. And in the age of the Internet, if your system isn't perfect, all it takes is for one person anywhere in the world to produce a crack and upload it somewhere, and anyone who wants a free copy of your program can get it. (And using a pre-existing library just gives them a head start on cracking it.)
If you want people to pay for your software instead of just downloading it, the one and only way to do so is to make your software good enough that people are willing to pay money for it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
I have used OnGuard (using the Delphi 2009/2010 source from SongBeamer) along with Lockbox to handle encryption with success. Both are commercial quality libraries and are free to use with full source.
I did once also use IceLicense, but switched to OnGuard/Lockbox which allowed me greater control over the key generation process which we embedded directly into our CRM system.
Of course there is no %100 bullet-proof protection suite, but having some type of protection is better than having nothing.
I worked with WinLicense in Delphi 2009 and Delphi 2010 on Windows XP and Vista. It is a good product with lots of protection options, and customizations. It provides a SDK for developers, and has nice documentation and samples. It also provides a license manager for you. They provide trial download too.
As far as I remember, they offer some customer specific versions too; that means they are willing to provide a custom-built product which is customized according to your needs, but of course that will cost more.
Since WinLicense is a well-known and popular protection suit, many crackers are after it. As you know, the more famous a tool is, the more appealing it is to crackers. But the good thing about Oreans is that they actively monitor underground forums, and provide frequent updates to their products.
So IMHO, if you are supposed to buy a prebuilt protection suite, then you'd better go for WinLicense.
A little late to the post, but check out Marx Software Security (http://www.cryptotech.com) they have a USB device with RSA & AES on chip, with network based license management.
I bought a license for ICE License in 2007. Unfortunatly (as far as I know) the component haven't been updated since June 2007. Back then a Vista compatible version was in the work but never came out of beta. I don't think they updated the component for Delphi 2009 and 2010 yet.
Ionworx is an one man company which might explain the lack of updates and lack of answer to support questions (emailed them 2-3 times since 2007 and never got back to me). They also removed their support forum from their site.
ICE License is better than nothing but I would stay away from this product because the lack of updates & support.
I investigated this a few years ago, and came to the following conclusions:
All copy protection can be broken
Nag screens on load irritate people to the point where they may stop using the product
Random nag screens can interrupt the users work flow to the point where they perceive it to be a reduction in the speed of the application
Set up compiler options, so that you have a version as a demo (perhaps with save functions removed), reduce multi user versions so that only one client can connect at a time (not using, for ex:
if connection=1 then reject
but reducing the viability for multiple connections in code)
Themida has good protection, and I think it built with Delphi too ;-)
if you have a better budget, you can look at winLicense and other tools from same company.
Have a look at this question which is pretty similar, and includes many of the tools.
Take a look at InstallShield. We've been using it for a while ourselves, and it has a lot of capabilities for trial support, licensing, and others. I don't know about key generation off the top of my head as our use doesn't require keys, but there's a lot available to you from them.
AppProtect wraps an EXE or APP file with computer unique password or Serial Number based online activation. QuickLicense is a more comprehensive tool that support all license types (trial, product, subscription, floating, etc.) and support both a wrapping approach or API to apply the license to any kind of software. Both are available from Excel Software at www.excelsoftware.com.
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.
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).
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.
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 ...
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.
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.