no querytranslator is effectively no (free) internationaliza

[Scott]

hi Steve,

i just noticed the query translator's function...and that it got taken out of dataface
i just got errors after i created the extra tables and set multilingual_content=1.

it is really too bad this functionality is not open source anymore.
it also makes me wonder about other dataface functionality staying free/opensource.

best regards,
Scott.

[shannah]

Hi Scott,

The query translator was never open source.Ê The rest of dataface is and always has been open source.Ê We are still deciding what to do in terms of the query translator.Ê Possibly it will be open sourced in the future but we will need to make a lot of tough decisions before that happens.
Don't worry about the rest of dataface becoming "NOT" open sourced.Ê As a developer / entrepreneur I need to be concerned with my business model so that I can afford to keep on developing the software.Ê The model that we were trying for a while was to develop open source software and try to make some money off of add-ons and extensions.ÊÊ The query translator extension was the first such attempt.Ê Due to lack of resources we haven't been able to properly market it, so at this point I would call this business model a failure.
Lately I have been leaning more toward the service oriented business model, where all of the software is open source but we charge for custom development and support.Ê This model seems to work a little better than the "add-on" model but I still find it difficult because clients seem to be very reluctant to pay for development that will essentially be given away to the community (there are a few nice features that have been developed for dataface that have not been allowed to be included in the distribution because the clients who requested those additions did not want them open sourced).
I wish to address the subject of this post ( no query translator = no free internationalization in df).Ê I draw a distinction between internationalization and multilingualization (this is the name I use to describe the ability to store multiple languages seamlessly in the database).Ê Dataface internationalization is free and open source.Ê Multilingualization is presently not.Ê I think that it is fair to make this distinction because just about every other system that I have run across doesn't offer multilingualization yet they advertise internationalization support.Ê Using dataface (open source) you are able to internationalize your application text strings quite easily using its language ini files.ÊÊ Storing different versions of the content for different languages then becomes implementation specific, and indeed it is possible to roll your own multilingual database solutions using dataface.Ê The query translator extension is one quick and efficient means of achieving multilingualization because it attacks the problem at the SQL level by translating your SQL queries to produce the proper results at run-time.Ê However there are other strategies you can try.
The fact that people have already paid for copies of the query translator makes it a little difficult to open source it (though at this point I think I would rather just open source it to get it out there) because it wouldn't be fair to the people who bought it.Ê After some time passes, this may not be a big an issue.. but ...
Anyways.Ê I hope this isn't too much of an inconvenience to you.Ê I'd be happy to send you a 60 day trial version to test drive if you like.
Best regards
Steve

[Scott]

hi Steve,
im happy to hear that df will not be de-opensourced...i did not really think it would anyway
i do agree with your post.
and i think that whoever needs internationalization will most likely always also need to have translations of their db content. i still think df is pretty cool eventhough the multi language feature is not free.
thanks for the trial offer, if i decide to go the querytranslator way i will let you know.
cheers,
Scott.