The Future of X#

[wriedmann]

Hi Robert,
personally I think a forum is a better place to discuss than comments to an article.

So, first let me say a big "THANK YOU" for all you have done in the last years for the X# project. Without you, the project would have never been at the point where it is today. You are the hearth and the mind of X#.

Now to the subject: Personally I think a foundation would be the right way to go, and the community should take over the responsibility slowly.
Personally I'm willing to contribute both financially and with work to the X# Foundation.
But I see a few limits: both my financial and time resources are limited, even if I consider me a relatively good programmer and someone who knows VO and X# very well, my personal knowledge and programming ability is ways behind you all four. And I'm now really young anymore - even if I have no plans to retire, I have to remember that I have only 8 years to go until I reach the age where both of my parents have died.

X# is very important for me and my company so I will do whatever I can to support the project.

Wolfgang

P.S. IMHO also X# 3.0 should be distributed as binaries, I would only sell the VS integration as paid addon (for non FoX members).

[Chris]

Hi Wolfgang,

Thanks a lot for your post! I also think that a foundation in the best way to move forward, if done properly.

Just to clarify what you mean about the binaries, do you mean that they (compiler, runtime etc) should still be available also to non subscribers of the project?

[wriedmann]

Hi Chris,

Just to clarify what you mean about the binaries, do you mean that they (compiler, runtime etc) should still be available also to non subscribers of the project?

yes, exactly that because I think it would cost the project a lot of users.
I would instead contact Jetbrains to see if a support for X# in Rider would be possible without too much work - it would open a new way because I would not exclude that Microsoft closes Visual Studio for alternate languages.
Wolfgang

[ic2]

Has there ever been some research about the willingness of the non Fox members to contribute? I can imagine that many users can not justify the price of a Fox membership (e.g. because X# is used for non commercial projects) but they would be willing to contribute a smaller amount. Of course, that should not have the result of Fox members shifting towards the 'low price' contribution. Probably you have already done the math already and maybe such a funding does not help much; after all I don't know how many Fox and how many non paying active users X# has.

Dick

[VR]

One idea for noncommercial projects could be to create a community license for these kinds of projects. A requirement for this license could be that it can only be used for projects that are open source (i.e., contain an open source license file and are published in a public git repository).

Volkmar

[Chris]

Guys,

I would be nice if that was the case, but I don't think it's very realistic to expect that X# to date has been used for non-commercial purposes, at a significant percentage at least. All the feedback/reports we have been getting are for commercial or at least big enough in-house applications. I only know of one person that is using (in part) X# for writing games and other such fun stuff, but he is already a subscriber to the project.

[Jamal]

Hello X# Team & All,

I appreciate the hard work of the X# team and the community and I feel your pains. I am still on the sidelines since I still use X# for testing and helping others on the X# forum.

Since I mainly use C# for development for Desktop and Website development, if the DBFCDX were a separate product and it works with Framework 4.8+ and .NET 8 and above without using the full X#, I would be interested in subscribing at a lower cost. I have a desktop program written in VO, but I want to develop it C# .NET Core, but I only require the DBFCDX RDD (library).

This leads me to suggest that X# be broken into a main product and add-ons, for example:
1. Universal Subscription which includes everything.
2. Add-on products : SQL RDD, DBFCDX RDD (or call it DBFCDX Library), or Advantage Server or an alternative developed by the X# team. Those add-ons should work with any .NET language like C#, etc. This would in turn attract more interest and clients

Hopefully such a scheme, would bring in more revenue to the X# company or foundation.

Regards & Good Luck!
Jamal

[wriedmann]

Hi Jamal,
the DBFCDX RDD can work also with C# - I have several X# Core applications where I'm using the RDD using an interface library.
But I think your idea is a good one - selling the DBFCDX RDD as addon for other .NET languages.
Wolfgang

[Jamal]

Hi Wolfgang,

There were some issues with the DBFCDX RDD and .NET 8+ related to the Macro compiler when a CDX tag expressions has a user defined function. I have not yet checked the latest public version to see if the issue has been resolved.

Jamal

[wriedmann]

Hi Jamal,
X# 3.0 will be fully .NET 8 compliant.
Wolfgang