By publishing the source code of Bold for Delphi with an MIT license at https://github.com/Embarcadero/BoldForDelphi, Embarcadero has officially made the Bold for Delphi library an open source project.

What is Bold (And Some History)

Bold is a tool in the MDA (Model Driven Architecture) space, which allows you to start with an UML model of your application and a set of business rules written in a high level language and “execute” the model after creating a graphical user interface for it.

Bold includes a sophisticated object-relational mapping layer, ability to map data to multiple formats, changes synchronization, and much more. It includes a large amount of IDE integrated tools and options to work with external UML modeling software.

The Bold framework and library was originally built by Bold Soft, later acquired by Borland, and sold as an add-on to Delphi in the Delphi 6 and 7 timeframe. In the following years, the development of Bold was discontinued, to focus on the ECO (Enterprise Core Objects) framework for the .NET platform. ECO was later sold by Borland to CapableObjects. 

A number of customers remained active on Bold and updated it to work with the most recent versions of Delphi, but could not release and share their updates with other developers due to the proprietary license.

You can read more about Bold at:

• https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Bold_for_Delphi
• http://boldfordelphi.blogspot.com/

The product documentation is available in the GitHub repository at https://github.com/Embarcadero/BoldForDelphi/tree/master/Doc

The GitHub Repository and the License

As mentioned, the last internal version of the Bold for Delphi source code has now been released on GitHub under an MIT license.

Notice that this is not an updated version. The code released should work with Delphi 7 and Delphi 2006, and will not work with a Unicode version of the product (since version Delphi 2009).

If you are wondering what’s the use of this old code, the main goal is to encourage customers active on the library to share their more recent versions, which work with Delphi 10.4 Sydney. This has been a long-standing request of the active Bold customers.

The release of a version that works with Delphi 10.4 Sydney is not going to happen immediately, as it will depend on active Bold users to publish their changes. Publishing the internal code under an open source license was important to make it possible for others to start work together on a more recent version.

The Community Drive

Embarcadero is not planning to remain directly involved in the updating and maintenance of Bold for Delphi source code, other than helping the Bold community organize and promote their effort. 

If you are interested in getting involved and helping, please let me know (via email or comment) and I can put you in touch with the developers who are starting the community effort.

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