SimDesign

I just found that an older version of NativeXML is bundled with my Delphi XE2! It is hidden inside unit IWNativeXML and part of the Intraweb-Package that comes with Delphi (except Starter Edition).

Hello Uwe,

Really? It would be interesting, if it was really SimDesign's old NativeXml version. It has been open-sourced since quite some time so I assume it is allowed as long as Embarcadero would write something about the source (simdesign.nl) in their documentation. I have not heard anything about this tho, and I have always had to pay my new Delphi versions as normal customer. I'd say they should at least give me a free version of XE2 if this is the case

However, there may have been other XML components that have the same name. After all, 'native' is a general directive.

Kind regards, Nils

It is definitely "your" NativeXML (or a very similar clone). The cNativeXmlVersion constant says "3.06".

Ah, so it is v3.06 of rev 2047 for feb 03, 2010! Quite some several hundreds, if not a thousand revisions ago, because the current revision is r3607 for NativeXml.

The license of this revision states:


So Embarcadero must reproduce this license and acknowledge SimDesign BV as the copyright holder in their source code and/or documentation.

Somehow I am proud that they (embarcadero) chooses SimDesigns NativeXml sourcecode for their internals. However, what I do not particularly like is that they have not publicly admitted that they are using my sourcecode and I have not even heard an offer to give SimDesign a version of XE2 so I can test with NativeXml. Also, the rev2047 is very old and is bound to still have many bugs which have since been fixed.

Nils Haeck

I just checked the Enterprise edition of XE2 and found the same result.

As AtoZed Software is the creater of IntraWeb, most likely the liability rests with them and not Embarcadero.

I actually contacted AtoZed as well as my contact at Embarcadero and notified them of the issue.

AtoZed responded to me that they had/are contacting Nils and will have this issue corrected in an upcoming update.

I'm glad to see this result as I really like this component and the work Nils has done.

Hi Nils,
There should be someway to send you donations for your work on NativeXML so you can buy Delphi XE2 or XE3.

Hi Aliso,

Donations are always welcome, but in principle I don't need XE2 or XE3, except maybe to check NativeXml compatibility with newer versions of Delphi. Here's why:

I still work with Delphi 7. I actually own a Delphi XE license and installed XE, but I don't like the bloatedness of XE. There is no reason why XE2 or XE3 would be better either. Embarcadero has argued they needed to go to Unicode (which is good) but fail to convince me when they say that the move to *specifically* UTF16 as default "string" was in order to abide to the Windows API. It is still a waste of 200% of storage space for 95% of the strings. UTF8 has been there too since the inception of Unicode. And the windows platform no longer is the only one. Other platforms will emerge / have already emerged, like Linux, Android and Mac. These others usually have UTF8 as the default storage option.

So my take on this is that I keep avoiding Delphi newer versions and now work more often with FreePascal, since they did decide correctly on UTF8 for Unicode and at least did not get locked in to UTF16 Windows API. And whenever I am debugging I am still very very happy with the "snappyness" of Delphi 7 This is *still* true even tho I now work on Win7 64bit / Linux 64bit on my quadcore dev machine.

Kind regards, Nils

However, if Embarcadero wishes to give a XE2 / XE3 version free of charge for me to test NativeXml, then by all means.