The terms of our license agreement are fully outlined in our End User License Agreements (EULA). EULAs for each and every product we engineer are displayed before you install our products (both trial and registered versions). Though the Questions and Answers listed below in no way replace the terms defined within product EULAs, we hope they will help explain some of the terms/concepts contained within the license agreement. As always, if you have questions regarding our license, please do let us know.

Product Subscriptions and Pricing

Do I have to pay you royalties if I use a component you engineer within my application?

Developer Express does not charge any royalties for redistribution of components that have been integrated into applications which you engineer. Of course, this only applies if you have a valid license to all products which are being used within your application.

Important Note:
PHP Controls engineers products that include “redistributables” and those that do not. Our EULAs fully outline whether a product includes redistributables and the terms under which redistribution is authorized.

What kind of packages and pricing does your company offer? What do I get when I purchase a product from PHP Controls?

Please refer to the following pages to see all available product subscriptions, their features and pricing information:

Subscriptions for Visual Studio Developers
Subscriptions for Delphi/C++Builder Developers
What am I paying for when buying a Subscription?
All PHP Controls products are sold based on a subscription model. This means that when you purchase a Subscription, you receive 12 months of free updates for that product(s) from the date of purchase – be it a minor service update or a major new version. After the 12 month period and at your discretion, you can pay about 45% of original price to “renew” the subscription and receive another 12 months of free updates. If you choose not to renew, you can continue using the last version you obtained or are eligible to use. The 12 month time frame is merely for new versions/updates and does not apply to rights of use (as long as the EULA is not violated).

Note that you can renew a subscription after it has expired. Renewal costs increase 30 days after expiration of your subscription (pricing increases on a monthly basis after the 13th month). Please contact a member of our Client Services team if you have an expired subscription or if you need further clarification on the terms of our subscriptions.

Can I continue to use the products contained within a subscription if the subscription expires and I choose not to renew?

Absolutely. You can continue to use products which you have licensed and paid for…as long as you require. When a subscription expires, it simply means that you will no longer be issued any product updates or new product releases.

An expired subscription can be renewed. If you do not renew your subscription on the 13th month after purchase, your renewal cost will increase on a monthly basis. Feel free to contact a member of our Client Services team for more information on renewals and product costs once your subscription expires.

Licensing Model

Is your license on a per-developer basis? Does each developer using your products require a license?
Yes. Each developer that uses our products must have their own license. We don’t license per machine, per server, or demand any royalties or run-time fees. For more information, refer to our End-User License Agreement. If you have a testing team and they need to compile the application, then those testers will also each need a license. Testers who just test the completed, compiled application (that is, use it much as an end-user does) do not need a license.

Can a license be transferred from one developer to another?

Yes. In fact you can do this yourself using our website once the company has purchased multiple licenses. Log in to the PHP Controls website and select My Account | Manage & Assign Licenses where you can assign a particular license to a given email address (that’s how we differentiate between developers). You also assign a password at the same time. Please note that we do not allow any type of floating licenses. For more information, refer to our End-User License Agreement.

Can I install the product on 2 machines (I’m running a desktop in the office, have a laptop and a home desktop)?

Absolutely.

What if I need to install your products onto a third machine? Can a single developer license be used on any number of machines?

To a certain extent. The EULA specifically states two, but to be honest we don’t worry unless there’s obvious piracy going on.

If you don’t license per machine, what happens with regard to an automated build machine or build server? There’s no developer there.
If no development is performed on the build machine and its sole purpose is to generate actual builds of your products, then no you do not need to purchase a separate license for the build machine. If however a developer uses the build machine for active development and this developer does not have a valid license for the products, then yes, he or she must acquire a license for the product.

Since a developer can install on several machines (see the previous answer), get a senior developer to install his license on the build machine. If you like, he becomes the “owner” of the product on that machine.

Can I install on a deployment server?

You should not install our products on deployment web servers. For such servers, it sufficient just to deploy the runtime libraries of our products with your applications.

License Activation

Do you collect any personal information during activation?

No. The only information required to activate (actually, that should be “to install”) is the email address and password associated with the license.

Is it possible to activate products on a machine that does not have an internet connection?
Yes, however validation is still required. If the machine being activated is not connected to the internet, our installer displays an opaque data blob that should be sent to us (presumably on another machine), and we reply immediately with another opaque data blob that must be entered into the installer. Once that validation has checked out, the installer will proceed to install the product. The installer will tell you what to do and how to do it.

Warranty Questions

What is the warranty period?

Like all software you purchase, we do not provide any warranty. In essence, we provide the software “as is”. To be absolutely sure of what we do or do not provide, please refer to the EULA.

However, when you purchase a license, you will have access to all upgrades and updates for a full year. You will also automatically have access to our support team. You can renew after the year is up. If you don’t renew, you will no longer get free updates, but you will continue to recieve support.

Distribution Questions

I plan on modifying your source code. Will I be able to do that and redistribute the modified libraries?

Absolutely. You can modify our source code and redistribute the modified libraries. As you can imagine, this does not apply to situations in which you are modifying our code, repackaging our controls and selling competing controls. Please consult our EULA for additional information.

Are we allowed to give the source code to the controls (whether we change them or not) to our customers?

No, the source code is not redistributable, even if you change it. The only files you may distribute are explicitly listed in the EULA.

Support Services and Product Delivery Questions

What avenues of support do you provide? What’s the response time? How long does support last?

Support is provided by one of two methods: either by a web-based system we call the Support Center, or by email (support@PHP Controls.com). We aim to respond to all questions within one business day. Support via phone, IM, or chat is not provided. The support team may, in certain circumstances, decide to access your development machine using Remote Desktop or similar. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Support is only provided to a developer with a valid license.

What is the delivery mechanism for your products? Do you offer major/minor versions for new releases? What about service packs or hotfixes?

Delivery of our products is by download only. We provide 2 major releases of our products a year, with about 3 – 5 minor releases in between. We notify customers via email when a new release is ready for download. When necessary, we publish hotfixes that can be downloaded from the PHP Controls Support Center.

Do you charge for minor/major releases? Do the service packs/hotfixes cost extra?

PHP Controls licenses its software components and development technologies on a subscription basis. The subscription duration is 12 months from the date of purchase. If your subscription is active, you can download and use updates, service packs and hotfixes for all products included in your subscription. Upon expiration of a subscription, you can optionally renew your license for an additional 12 months and receive another year of updates from PHP Controls. If you do not renew your subscription, you may continue to use the products you’ve licensed but you will no longer receive new updates or be eligible for technical support services from PHP Controls.

If you have questions or need more information on our subscription plans, feel free to contact a member of the PHP Controls Client Services Team by Email or by phone at +1 (818) 844-3383 between 7:30AM and 4:30PM Pacific Time.

If a bug is reported in any of your controls, do you provide a hotfix? If so, within what timeframe?

There are no general rules here: it really depends on the severity of the issue, whether there is a temporary workaround, etc. In most cases, you will be able to get a hotfix from support, or from the issue page in the Support Center. Sometimes, there’s no possibility of a hotfix and you will have to wait for the next minor release. Since we publish releases every three weeks or so on average, it’s unlikely you’ll have to wait very long.

Do you have a premium level of support where you provide dedicated resources to help us or solve the critical bugs we may find?

No, there is no such premium level of support. We endeavor to fix critical bugs (that is, those without a viable workaround or those visible to many customers) as soon as possible.

If we enhance your controls, is there a partnership program or similar to get our changes into the main product?

No, I’m afraid there isn’t. We do not incorporate other people’s code into our own because there are too many legal ramifications. To be honest we prefer implementing the solution to a given issue/suggestion ourselves rather than pay legal fees to cover those ramifications. We are, after all, developers – it says so in our company name.

Source Code Questions

Do you offer full source code for your controls?

If you are targeting .NET, then ____perience and Universal Subscriptions contain the entire source for the controls for all platforms (PHP Controls does not ship source code for CodeRush and Report Server). Other .NET subscriptions ship without the source code.

All VCL subscriptions are available with full source code.

If source code is available, are we allowed to change the source code? Are there any limitations to doing so?

Yes, of course you can change the source. However, you would be then responsible for applying the same changes to the source every time we release a new minor/major version (and there could be upwards of 15 releases a year). Sometimes, we may rewrite or refactor our code such that it’s no longer obvious how to apply your previous changes. Depending on how extensive your changes are, we might not be able to provide support.

You cannot circumvent our license agreement by providing non-licensed developers with controls you’ve altered by changing the source. Again, read the EULA to determine what you can or cannot do in this respect.

Obviously, we will not provide our signing keys for any assemblies you modify, so be aware of possible “DLL hell” problems that could occur on end-user machines if they have several apps from different vendors that use our controls.

Pricing and licensing terms are subject to change with or without notice.