Does anyone have CRW 8.0 dev edition? Could you post the developer license file?
I have been using CRW since v4, and until recently, was very happy with its free run-time distribution libraries. However, since upgrading to v8.5, I found its license agreement completely unacceptable. Its definition of broadcast system is so wide that it would easily catch most of the customer service applications that we use, and would make us liable to tens of thousands license fees annually.
We have an application that email order pipeline (stock on order, on back order, on integration, ready to ship, etc etc) to our customers. The report is run for each customer by setting a parameter equal to the customer id repeatedly, until the customers on the active customer list are exhausted. The result of the report is exported to a local file. Using Distiller, it's converted to pdf format, and then using a smtp server, it's emailed to the customer (we don't use the MAPI export function because it only works when a MAPI client is active. Since our app is run at night, without user intervention, having a computer logged on, even locked, is not a very secure solution). We can't use Seagate Info to achieve that functionality because we would have to schedule as many jobs as we have customers by supplying a different parameter for each job (and the scenario is a simplied version. We in fact have lots of parameters that need to be set, and thus given the permutations, it would be a horrendous administrative nightmare trying to use Seagate Info). Crystal Enterprise is yet to even have the functionality to email report to users (not to mention the parameter problem).
I guess the point I am trying to make is that there are lots of tasks (particularly, customer service applications like ours) that simply can't be performed using Crystal Enterprise/Seagate Info. However, Crystal Decisions has designed its license file in such a way that, any broadcast system (unless via paper), would attract its broadcast license fee (which is very expensive [>50K per annum for 100 users, and much more if it scales up]) (then again, we shouldn't be surprised given how expensive Crystal Enterprise is nowadays). I suppose Crystal Decisions is trying to protect its high margin products such as Crystal Enterprise. However, such a product can't achieve what we want to do, without incurring an absolute administrative nightmare. Yet, we are completely locked out using CRW 8.5 as a solution. I can understand the competitive product restriction, or even the server reporting restriction. However, having such a widely defined broadcast license simply makes no sense.
We wanted to adopt CRW 8.x because its ability to natively translate document into pdf format. From the quality we have seen, it's much better than that provided by Distiller (which is not surprising since it's a conversion from printout to ps2, and then from ps2 to pdf, which would lose quite a lot of fidelity). However, given the licensing restriction, we simply can't afford to adopt it.
We are just wondering if anyone has a copy of the CRW 8.0 (not 8.5) license, and post it so that we can have a look to see whether it has similar restrictions on broadcast license.
If it does, I guess we would have to stick with CRW 7.0. Now we had recoded our app to use RDC for CRW 8.5, and we would like to stick with RDC. Our old code on CRW 7.0 uses Crystal Automation Server, rather than RDC. Does anyone have had any problem downgrading code from RDC 8.x to RDC 7.0?
In addition, does anyone know of any file udpate (I guess this is extremely unlikely, but in case someone knows of a way) for CRW 7.0 to allow it to natively export to pdf? Having seen the quality of CRW 8.x pdf export, we would really love to keep that kind of quality. But I guess everything comes down to the money. We just can't afford the broadcast license fee for CRW 8.5.
Thanks for reading my grumbling about CRW. I guess I am really frustrated.
I have been using CRW since v4, and until recently, was very happy with its free run-time distribution libraries. However, since upgrading to v8.5, I found its license agreement completely unacceptable. Its definition of broadcast system is so wide that it would easily catch most of the customer service applications that we use, and would make us liable to tens of thousands license fees annually.
We have an application that email order pipeline (stock on order, on back order, on integration, ready to ship, etc etc) to our customers. The report is run for each customer by setting a parameter equal to the customer id repeatedly, until the customers on the active customer list are exhausted. The result of the report is exported to a local file. Using Distiller, it's converted to pdf format, and then using a smtp server, it's emailed to the customer (we don't use the MAPI export function because it only works when a MAPI client is active. Since our app is run at night, without user intervention, having a computer logged on, even locked, is not a very secure solution). We can't use Seagate Info to achieve that functionality because we would have to schedule as many jobs as we have customers by supplying a different parameter for each job (and the scenario is a simplied version. We in fact have lots of parameters that need to be set, and thus given the permutations, it would be a horrendous administrative nightmare trying to use Seagate Info). Crystal Enterprise is yet to even have the functionality to email report to users (not to mention the parameter problem).
I guess the point I am trying to make is that there are lots of tasks (particularly, customer service applications like ours) that simply can't be performed using Crystal Enterprise/Seagate Info. However, Crystal Decisions has designed its license file in such a way that, any broadcast system (unless via paper), would attract its broadcast license fee (which is very expensive [>50K per annum for 100 users, and much more if it scales up]) (then again, we shouldn't be surprised given how expensive Crystal Enterprise is nowadays). I suppose Crystal Decisions is trying to protect its high margin products such as Crystal Enterprise. However, such a product can't achieve what we want to do, without incurring an absolute administrative nightmare. Yet, we are completely locked out using CRW 8.5 as a solution. I can understand the competitive product restriction, or even the server reporting restriction. However, having such a widely defined broadcast license simply makes no sense.
We wanted to adopt CRW 8.x because its ability to natively translate document into pdf format. From the quality we have seen, it's much better than that provided by Distiller (which is not surprising since it's a conversion from printout to ps2, and then from ps2 to pdf, which would lose quite a lot of fidelity). However, given the licensing restriction, we simply can't afford to adopt it.
We are just wondering if anyone has a copy of the CRW 8.0 (not 8.5) license, and post it so that we can have a look to see whether it has similar restrictions on broadcast license.
If it does, I guess we would have to stick with CRW 7.0. Now we had recoded our app to use RDC for CRW 8.5, and we would like to stick with RDC. Our old code on CRW 7.0 uses Crystal Automation Server, rather than RDC. Does anyone have had any problem downgrading code from RDC 8.x to RDC 7.0?
In addition, does anyone know of any file udpate (I guess this is extremely unlikely, but in case someone knows of a way) for CRW 7.0 to allow it to natively export to pdf? Having seen the quality of CRW 8.x pdf export, we would really love to keep that kind of quality. But I guess everything comes down to the money. We just can't afford the broadcast license fee for CRW 8.5.
Thanks for reading my grumbling about CRW. I guess I am really frustrated.