One of the many USP’s of our PDF library product is that we give OEM customers access to the source code and it is now available for OEM customers of the PDF2HTML5 convertor (you will need to email us for a password). This is very useful.
1. It removes the worry about supporting the application if something happens to us (although we have been here since 1999 and not planning to go anywhere!). There is no need for an escrow.
2. It allows other developers to look inside our code. We even get bug fixes/suggestions.
3. It shows confidence in our product. One of the most frightening things for a developer is having someone else look at their code. Obviously we have some code we are very proud of (and some less so), but as a whole, if you want to invest in our product, you should get access to the code.
4. You can create your own custom build from source if you need to rather than being stuck with our jar.
There are some caveats. If you start editing the code, we will not support the changed version and the code is not for you to use as you wish – it still belongs to us. Also you should not link to non API code as it may change.
But overall, we think it is very useful for OEM customers to have access to the source code. What do you think?
IDRsolutions develop a Java PDF library, a PDF forms to HTML5 converter, a PDF to HTML5 or SVG converter and a Java Image Library that doubles as an ImageIO replacement. On the blog our team post about anything interesting they learn about.
