Embarcadero Software Compliance Research Representative
Multiple openings - long-term gig jobs (10,000+ hours)
Are you a customer-oriented person looking for multi-year jobs?
For some background on this post, see Delphi’s OCD license system, how mass surveilance (not for content, for API-points and certain JS files), and how re-installing Delphi requires an updated renewal, often with penalties.
Note: to obfuscate the origin, the job advertisements are re-writen.
As a Software Compliance Research Representative (SCRR), you’ll:
look at businesses’s on-line presence where owners flaut their weath, or earn more than US$5,000 or seems to run a business that hires 6 or more developers… and using Delphi Community on a small network.
Developers mixing Pro, Educational and Community licenses on the same network.
Look for developers who use Delphi against the Embarcadero EULA.
For this role, you require strong organization skills, deep google-fu and ability to create meticulously detailed documentations, which may be used as evidence in court.
You will be communicating with multiple stakeholders, especially non-English lawyers (e.g. in Brazil, India, Thailand or Indonesia) who will bring cases to court.
What you’ll be doing:
As a SCRR, you will be responsible for sipping from the firehose - looking at infringing data and flagging non-compliance.
(to find out how Delphi/Sencha/ERWIN/WholeTomato gets this data, see articles How C# vendors got filthy rich, and Delphi’s OCD License system).After you are sure this usage is “not legal” (an irony, as re-installing Delphi requires a subscription) and send out notices of license violations
Make sure you keep each case updated, tracked, documenting all actions, communications on all cases on DMS/CRM and followed-up upon.
Draft all settlement and legal documents, and ensure it is "documented” in the DMS/CRM system.
Ensure each action taken is legal, and ensure deadlnes are met for best financial resolution.
Manage case coordination with documentation exchange between multiple cases, companies, individuals and firms.
Must properly discern and appropriately handle sensitive account and contact information.
Occasional interaction with targeted company/contact.
Glancing at certain gig sites, there are multiple people doing long term jobs - many of them logging more than astonishing 3,000 hours!
Image redacted to protect privacy.
Victimology
I managed to get several letters forwarded by victims in the UK.
I’ve seen grumpy old Delphi developers get angry and just pay-up, or forced into an endless subscription…
They often use VMs but accidentally allows the VM to update itself (and… you can imagine the rest).
Ghost Piracy (as defined by BSA aka B******-Software Association) occurs when employers hire per-project contractors and these per-project employees use not-so-legal versions of Delphi and use them. Amazingly, these per-project employees work on-site (and you can imagine the rest).
These are clear-cut cases, and as court-cases are public records, so I won’t elaborate further.
Do you want to hear my story?
Then, there are victims -
There’s a certain kind of piracy which annoys employers, and they get fed-up being the fall-guy for their employee’s indiscretions - WFH piracy and wilful actions by employee.
In WFH piracy - when a serial is provided, but the employee goes ahead and uses not-so-legal edition instead (and… you can imagine the rest). One employer went and said “the employee should be on the hook for this”, not the employer!
When employer buys a serial or latest freshest source-code, and then employees upload them to certain sites complete with watermarks, and gets a nasty email and wondering what the…?
Do you think piracy law should be made into DCMA style law? If it is found employer is innocent, the fine passes to employee, and, they should pay the £5,000 fine.
This is the blind eye that causes certain businesses to abandon Delphi.
You can imagine certain developers who just loathe Delphi, and swear never to use it again.
I’ve sat down and asked why…
Do you think Embarcadero should sue companies, force payment in hundreds of thousands, and force companies NOT to use Delphi? (Embarcadero vs. NCR - case is still on-going as of writing this post).
As an example of license compliance fines -
£5,000 - 1 license non-compliance settlement.
£10,000 or more if a team of developers.
Goes to court. Extract between £50,000 to hundreds of thousands in damages and above.
Interest payment on damages due to non-payment or partial payments.
Sending a case to court.
Note: the above are UK-based fines. If you do not pay, you might go to jail.
Delphi developers who have to re-install Delphi or need to ensure their app works on latest iOS and Android, they have options -
Convert from Delphi to Java, C#, or Rust or C++…
Stop renewing Delphi - and pay a penalty later,
Pay annual renewals,
Have £5,000 or more, handy to pay for license violation settlement?
Use community edition, and stop posting on social media photos of your big house, big car…, big company christmas celebration photos…
Sooner or later, there will be nobody using Delphi!