Here’s an interesting bit from the Delphi for Win32 FAQ:
Have there been any changes to the licensing for Delphi 2007 for Win32?
The license for Delphi 2007 for Win32 remain much the same as for BDS2006, with one exception. The new license allows you to deploy the command line compiler to another machine purely for the purpose of doing an automated or unattended build.
This is something I’ve advocated for years, and I’m very happy to see CodeGear doing this. Fully automated builds running at least daily are a best practice of software development. Yet most software licenses are written in such a way as to (unintentionally, I hope) ban them. For example, the D2006 license requires a named user. Even without the named user requirement, few companies are going to want to pay full retail price for a compiler license which will never be used by a human being.
So, generally, they don’t. When a software license departs from reality, people tend to ignore it. Allowing free use of the Delphi compiler for fully automated builds doesn’t cost CodeGear any revenue, but it does send a strong, clear message that they understand and support good software development practices. I hope that all commercial software vendors in the development tool market follow this lead. Borland, are you listening?
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