Other It's time to grow

Erel

B4X founder
Staff member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I’m very proud in the continuing progress of B4X tools. I’m also very proud to be part of this amazing developers community.

In the last couple of years, I have a growing feeling that B4X tools do not realize their potential. While there are all kinds of development tools, B4X offers a unique set of features: simple, powerful, mature, great community, RAD, native, cross platform and more.
B4X tools are an excellent choice for a wide range of real-world use cases.

So, the question is how to make B4X more popular? Obviously, it is not a simple nor a short-term task.
A clear growth barrier is the fact that unlike most development tools today, B4A and B4i are not free. This wasn’t the case 10 years ago.

The big announcement today is that B4A will become free in a few weeks. The framework - set of internal libraries, will be open sourced.

We will accept contributions for B4A like currently done with B4J.
We've also secured funds from a US investor who shares my vision of making B4X a popular development tool. These resources will allow us to further expand.

How can you help?

Help us spread the word about B4X.
 
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watesoft

Active Member
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Longtime User
Wow, thank you Erel, this is really great. Few people in China know about this powerful development tool. Maybe it ’s the reason for the fee. Now it ’s ready for free. Hope more and more Chinese developers like to use it.
 
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Vader

Well-Known Member
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Longtime User
I, like most am very excited to hear this. I am wondering what language the IDE and internal libraries were written in? The answer to this will be the largest factor to determine or influence [possible] future contributions. Right now, I am strongly considering adding B4X Browser to the IDE, or at least providing code to Erel so that he can incorporate the functionality. Or I guess, an Add-In could do it. There are a few choices open to me.
 
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tigrot

Well-Known Member
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Longtime User
Hi Erel, I was surprised by your decision to put in the freeware market your wonderful creation. I don't know anything about your team, but when I had a company in 2000 our main activity was devoted to find the funds to pay our employees.
Now I retired in 2019.
I whish you the best for the future of your company.
Mauro Zanin
 
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aeric

Expert
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Longtime User
watesoft said:
Wow, thank you Erel, this is really great. Few people in China know about this powerful development tool. Maybe it ’s the reason for the fee. Now it ’s ready for free. Hope more and more Chinese developers like to use it.
Click to expand...
Maybe more developers can use B4A to develop for Huawei’s HongMeng OS.
 
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mcqueccu

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
One thing we (existing) B4X users should note is, we will soon have lots of new users joining the forum. As such we must be ready as existing users to help them see the beauty of B4X. Our work schedule has just been trippled.
 
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Peter Simpson

Expert
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Longtime User

Wow welcome back, you've come out of the woodwork ?. The last time you were on, well apart from today was I believe September 14th 2019 @Vader

I believe that only the core libraries code will be open source, not the B4A source code itself.

Also I think being able to have some sort of plug-in ability would be nice, as the first thing that I would like to add would be a B4A version of my template manager, I use it for all my B4A and B4J projects. I believe that having a plug-in feature is not something that Erel is thinking about but it would be nice to have as developers could contribute IDE feature plug-ins ?
 
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ac9ts

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Just wondering (for no real reason) if the major version number will change for the free version? Version 9.8 is right around the corner. Version 10.0 for the new beginning?
 
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mcqueccu

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
ac9ts said:
Just wondering (for no real reason) if the major version number will change for the free version? Version 9.8 is right around the corner. Version 10.0 for the new beginning?
Click to expand...


If you have noticed. B4A increments by 3 (30). The next version will probably be 10.10
 
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aeric

Expert
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Longtime User
This made me think about some members here have asked Erel to make B4X for Linux. Maybe this is possible?
 
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dar2o3

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Without more information, it seems a risky move, I do not think that the price of the current license is a problem for anyone, you could lower the price for some less fortunate countries and raise it in others, or leave it as is, that way and I would stay a lot more calm thinking that Aniwhere Software earns money to continue with the project, anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your decision.
 
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oldeast

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I have dabbled in B4A but B4J has been a lifesaver, helping me create 4 products which I have given to non profit organisations.
The License and support are a bargain, the full compliment of development to final distribution is outstanding.
Thank you and congratulations Erel on this new era, you will never know how much your work has made a difference to so many.
 
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Javier Donayre

Member
Licensed User
Every change causes insecurity. The future will define whether this change will be good or not. What I am sure of is that Erel is a correct person and that he has created a group of programmers, which makes us feel that we belong to a big family. I think that Erel will not let us down and that his decision is the right one.
Many successful Erel and let us continue using this great tool called B4X !!
 
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abilio486software

Active Member
Licensed User
I use B4A to build a comercial app so for me there is no problem on fees on B4A licenses. Even in early stages of my peoject, B4A costs was not an issue. I also think that more important than Licenses is the cost of support and that should be payed in some way.
The roadmap is also important, I think that a easy java incorporation would be welcome. For example add to project a Java class as I add a B4A module, service, class and activity. B4A is an fantastic product, the best I saw in my entire programmer carrear! Thank you Erel
 
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