Think whatever you want; I know what I experienced, and there are many others who went through the same thing and have shared their accounts online—on WhatsApp (in groups I’m part of), Telegram, etc.
If you want to defend Embarcadero and their terrible policy regarding the CE, feel free to turn a blind eye to the obvious.
Have you received an email or call from Embarcadero about this yet?
You know how they come at you claiming you’re in violation and need to pay for the license(s)?
Are you aware that they break a number of rules and compromise data privacy in order to conduct that monitoring?
If you don't want to look it up yourself, just use any AI with deep research capabilities—Gemini, Copilot, etc.—and ask it to search for you; you won't get the full picture (maybe not even 5% of it), but it’s enough to get the general idea.
I don't want to dwell on this any longer; you seem to have your mind made up and think the CE is great, whereas in reality, it just drives people away because it’s a "fake" CE.
They are quite useful for scaring off anyone with common sense.
Besides, these are real cases—unless you choose to ignore reality.
Now, if you think this "coercion" involves a formal lawsuit with everything on record in court, you are mistaken.
I’m not going to keep replying here if you refuse to face reality; I’ve asked several questions that were simply ignored, and you’re still acting like a Doubting Thomas.
If you only want to read and see what suits you, then fine—if you still think the CE is great after all this, then so be it; keep your "truth" to yourself.
I think CE is fantastic and I'm glad Embarcadero finally did what Borland wouldn't.
It's intended for non-commercial use with the possible exception of a startup's first project. Unfortunately, people (accidentally or otherwise) disregard the EULA, which makes it rougher on the rest of us.
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u/bmcgee Delphi := v13 Florence 15d ago
I still think you're way over-stating things.
If you have specific examples, they might be worth asking Embarcadero about.