

VistaDB shutting down because of business operating costs - fraXis
http://infinitecodex.com/post/2010/07/07/Closing-VistaDB-Office.aspx

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Nwallins
> _Option – Open Source the Product_

> _No, Not really an option at all. Who would work on it? Sure lots of people
> love to consume open source projects, but very few people contribute to
> them. And I have put a LOT of money into this product, I am not going to
> just give it away until I can at least break even. I have to put my kids
> through college, hopefully reclaim part of the money I have put into the
> company, etc. And lets face it donation type projects never, ever make
> money. Advertising on the site, etc are all pointless wastes of time._

Um, how is this not an option when terminating the project is? I'm not saying
that he should open source anything, but this justification is silly,
especially when compared to his previous explicit option of killing and
burying the project.

~~~
simonw
D. Richard Hipp, the SQLite creator, makes a very good living from consulting
and support contracts from what I can tell.

"SQLite consortium" membership costs $75,000 a year:
<http://www.sqlite.org/consortium.html>

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hga
Every time I see a vendor abandon a product without open sourcing it it
becomes that much less likely I'll touch a non-open source product. Got burned
that way with Joel S. (CityDesk), not going to happen again if I can help it.

~~~
solutionyogi
At least he is offering the option to buy the source for some 'fee' while he
figures out how he can recover some of his investment. He will also release
the 4.1 version without 'activation' so that it will continue to function even
if the company shuts down. I think that's reasonable if not an ideal
situation.

~~~
fraXis
He has a user on his forum threatening legal action because the user feels
like he is being extorted to pay the $699 source code fee to get the latest
version with no licensing activation.

He should offer a free upgrade to v4.1 so all the users can still use the
software once the company closes down their activation servers. Maybe not a
free source code version, but a free upgrade to v4.1 would be in order.

All of the older version users have to activate their version of the software
and it will be useless once the activation servers go offline.

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phantomtypist
I think Jason killed his company himself. He went and moved into a new office
and hired a bunch of people. If you don't have the money for that, then don't
do it. I believe that if he stayed lean he'd be able to survive.

I am an owner of a VistaDB license and I truly love it, but I am not about to
pay $699 for a version that has no activation. I bought the product and if he
is going to go out of business and shut down the activation servers, the
product I bought will be useless. Garbage! If he is going under, we should be
able to get that last release without activation for free. Ridiculous. Jason
definitely isn't handling this appropriately. I never liked his paranoid
licensing to begin with.

~~~
Ggeo
Yes, I believe this, too. He killed his company and his software not focusing
on the VistaDB strength being an excellent website database, Xcopy deployable
and first of all running in Medium Trust on shared hosting servers. But he
wanted simply to high subscription fees and concentrated on implementing his
paranoid licensing system to enforce it. No wonder that, as he writes himself,
the revenues decreased constantly. Many developers would be ready to pay
yearly about $100 without problems but not the amounts he wanted. So his
company collapsing is his doing and not caused by wrong behavior of other
people (software developer in this case). Geo

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vyrotek
I had never really heard of these guys before. But, I'm a huge fan of .Net and
wish they could keep going. Open sourcing it would be great but I know I would
have a hard time letting it go. I wonder if this thing could have worked in
Azure as an in memory DB. You could use it as an interesting type of mem
cache.

~~~
fraXis
With you being a fan of .Net, do you have any recommendations for a simple
database to use with .Net that can easily be installed onto a customer's
computer.

VistaDB was very simple to install. You only had to copy the .dll to the
installation directory and it worked.

~~~
Encosia
The new web-enabled version of SQL Server CE that shipped with WebMatrix is
shaping up to be a good option. Going that route gives you a great upgrade
path from embedded, to the free SQL Server Express, to the more powerful
versions of SQL Server if your needs grow.

I'd guess that the new SQL Server CE release this week had something to do
with this VistaDB development.

~~~
heresy
What does "web enabled" mean?

SQL Server CE 4.0, you deploy the DLL with your app, that's it, no
configuration, no setup required.

"WebMatrix" not needed.

~~~
Encosia
The version of SQL Server CE bundled with WebMatrix is the first version of
SQL Server CE that will run on a web server. Older versions were good for
things like desktop apps, but were restricted from functioning in a server
environment.

WebMatrix definitely isn't needed to _use_ it afterward (WebMatrix is just an
IDE), but is the easiest (only?) way to get the new version of SQL Server CE
right now.

