Escaping Justice
A FBI fugitive accuses D2Bridge of piracy. Why doesn't Chad complain about Russian hackers hacking IntraWeb?
What’s Embarcadero doing in Sao Paulo, Brazil?
As Embarcadero Software Compliance Reps send legal letters to certain companies in Brazil, they rack up hundreds of hours, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. This information is publicly available.
In Brazil, there is an annual conference where they award the Delphi Spirit award, where the person who does the most volunteer work (aka work-for-free) is given an award.
Then, Embarcadero’s priority is to pay lawyers to bring cases to court.
According to several sources, they are sued for - a person connecting to VPN - to use Delphi Professional, and using Delphi Community at home1, usage of Delphi Community for more than 4 persons, asking for financial records, sending emails asking to pay money, or get sued.
What Chad doesn’t tell
Chad tells his story - about him taking his son overseas, and Chad’s wife taking a court-order to prevent Chad from brining his son, first to Russia, then St Kitts and various Caribbean Islands and back to Russia.
Chad has been featured in Al Jazeera2, and an investigative report on his businesses on Delphi Nightmares.
Chad lives a life of luxury - not having to work a single day of his life, paid by expensive IntraWeb subscriptions. Being a shareholder of Nevrona Designs, being a co-founder of FinalBuilder.
Chad Hower made an affiliate Delphi powerhouse by bundling crippled versions of FinalBuilder, former Nevrona RaveReports, and IntraWeb bundling that went on for many years.
Years ago, there were trolls who used fine-tooth combs to trawl the former Borland newsgroups, looking to argue with customers. Most importantly, their aim was to ruin, destroy, defame, slander the reputations of Delphi critics.
If they are not paid by Chad Hower, why are free TeamB working for free?
One particular issue is usage of nom-de-plum, false names, aliases which newsgroup posters were extolled about - only to have Chad have a different passport name.
One cannot talk about aliases, when Chad, or Peter, or Jeremy, or James, or whatever name he uses to post slander and maliciously talk about those who criticize Delphi.
D2Bridge
Recently, Chad reared his ugly head - posting about D2Bridge, a VCL that bridges between Delphi VCL projects.
Delphi D2Bridge recreates the DFM as HTML render, and maps clicks to to/from the HTML tags/render, to VCL-clicks via RTTI to each component.
IntraWeb
IntraWeb builds its own set of VCL components. IntraWeb came from Nevrona Designs.
Do you know any site that uses IntraWeb? You can tell if it’s IntraWeb, from since 2005 (20 years ago).
IntraWeb 16.1.9 (hint: someone from IntraWeb beta-testers group leaked it) contains the same.
So let’s see:
Do you know any website that uses IntraWeb, where I can View|Source and see serial number for proof, or evidence of IntraWeb usage?
I know UniFalcon public demo site3, RadCore public demo site4, several Unigui sites.
Same for ElevateSoft ElevateDB demos, same for TMS Web demo site.5
IntraWeb Third Party
If you look at:
UniGui, there is a small vibrant third-party component ecosystem.
In ElevateSoft there’s NiceToolkit6
In TMS Web, there are small snippets of code you can use.
So how is IntraWeb third-party?
Midas - no posts on their forums since 2019.
Arcana / IntraWeb - since… 15+ years ago.
IW Bootstrap Framework - no updates since 8+ years ago.
CGDevTools, a premier IntraWeb component site whose website is error 500.
In 50 reasons not to use Delphi - is #1 Poor implementations
Embarcadero’s own employees, over grapevine, have stated that when they develop features into FMX, VCL, or try to add much needed functionality to the VCL or FMX, they were told not to, to encourage third-party vendors to develop bespoke solutions, or to grow the third-party market.
CGDevTools is now as an additional fee to use in IntraWeb.
The same habit IntraWeb practices. Instead of including necessary features, its feature sold separately, increasing costs for customers.
All Bootstrap features should be in Intraweb, not as another payment! They haven’t integrated TailWind, or Selve or Vue.js. In Intraweb, expect each feature (like Navigation Bar, Panel, Layout, various edit fields to be made as components) and sold separately.
Claim 1 Unknown Turkish Reference
In Chad’s video, he talks of some unknown Turkish person - maybe he refers to FMSoft the company that develops UniGui , the Turkish business, of “copying” IntraWeb.
Chad - why don’t you sue FMSoft, since you say. Oh wait - Chad is a fugitive! If Chad goes to Turkey (which his AToZed is incorporated to a shell company in Cyprus), Chad could be arrested!
In Claim 1 - D2Bridge looks similar to IntraWeb. Then, when I checked UniGui, it looks similar to IntraWeb
Look at UniGui. Look at copyright violation for having Server Module and Main Module!
After looking at the source-code of D2Bridge (open-source) there is no line of code “copied” from IntraWeb.
Claim 2. Piracy.
One asks, can emails sent by Embarcadero be ignored?
Embarcadero has been sending letters asking to pay-up. Fines are estimated to be from 50,000 Brazilian Reals and onwards. (US$10,000) on average.
If you ignore them, Embarcadero will bring the case to court, and attempt to close down your business, or force you to pay fines. If you don’t - the fines compound with interest.
Then, look at Chad. The FBI fugitive. Why is Embarcadero turning a blind eye, listening to Chad? Why don’t it go after Russian hackers, like RIAA or Krebs on Security does, instead of picking low hanging fruits - harassing business owners trying to eke a living?
Where are Delphi jobs in Brazil?
Petition: Remove Indy, IntraWeb. Add ICS, TMS Web.
What is AToZed’s business or corporate structure, and where are profits going to?
Nevrona was devastated by Chad’s mishandling of Rave Report. It got so bad, that, several Nevrona Team Member7 (read: unpaid volunteers).
This seems to be former Borland’s business strategy is to ship a useless compiler (with similar performance to Free Pascal).
Let us know your comments below.
https://t.me/delphidevelopers/64368 - VPN usage
https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/tmswebcoredemos.asp - TMS Web Demo site.
If you ask some basic things to ChatGPT, even it will return some information that makes Chad Howard's case very interesting. Chad is an outlaw in the US. The case is public, and he left the country to not show in front of a grand jury. More details of the case can be found on the internet, and a doc on YouTube shows exactly what kind of person Chad is. Since his conviction, he has lived in many places, and now there is some unconfirmed info that he's a Russian citizen living in Russia. If all this is true, he'll never come back to the United States. But here is where things get "fascinating." Embarcadero had some licensed products, like Intra-web and Indy, from Chad's former company in the US. After Chad ran away from the US, he opened a company in Cyprus in the name of others. In Brazil, we say that he is using an "orange." Anyway, now there is a company to whom Embarcadero pays royalty fees (or anything like that) for IntraWeb and Indy. Which are still embedded in Embarcadero products. RAD and Delphi at least (if not others). Don't know what license agreement they had in the past or have now, but it is clear that there is some relationship between them. Chad complains in one video about piracy and code copy, like the products were still from his company. According to GPT-3 fonts, an American company doing business with an American outlaw or forbidden country is passive to penalties. Severe penalties included. Even through a third party. The companies are responsible for knowing who they are dealing with. Like an American company can't sell to another company that will repass the goods to Iran, for example. In the Embarcadero case, it would be very complicated to explain that they didn't know anything about it. Because the previous royalties went to Chad's former company, after Chad ran away, the royalties were transferred to a foreign company in a fiscal paradise with people they probably never met. There is no formal letter from Chad advising of rights to sell to third parties or anything like that. On the contrary, Chad is very alive and doing videos concerning the software products being copied or pirated, which is not the normal attitude of a person who should have sold his business and has nothing more to do with it. On the contrary, he still campaigns like he is the owner of the products. It's very clear what is happening. Probably Embarcadero knows what is going on and doesn't give a damn and, on the contrary, is still defending those products as legit. While the truth is that they should have removed them from their products a long time ago. But this will give a lot of work for sure and is probably the reason for the blindfold. Embarcadero should have ceased the contract, done other versions using very much like code, and waited to see if Chad would have the balls to sue anyone in America. But Embarcadero prefers to play a dangerous game. I'm not an American, and I can't make a formal complaint to the FBI (which knows Chad a lot); FTC; IRS; or U.S. Department of Commerce – Export or International Trade Issues. But if any American would like to do that, go ahead. It would be funny to see Embarcadero tasting its own poison.