I've been getting 2 or 3 emails every month from worried .Net Reactor users regarding the status of the product or looking for support ever since this post... Truth is I'm not using the product at the moment, as I don't have any projects that need it right now - as such I'm not such a great point of contact!

At any rate, to try and deflect those queries to a more appropriate place (especially as I just don't have time to answer them in many cases) I've created the .Net Reactor users group - a place for users of Eziriz products to post questions, answers or to just ask if anyone is out there.

So if you do stumble across my blog, why not join the group and post your questions there rather then sending me an email (which I probably won't see or get the time to reply to).


Edit: as an update, the google group is now being monitored by the .Net Reactor Author Denis Mierzwiak (MrBurns104) too, which is obviously a good thing.

Update: 22^nd May 2008 - Please if you have any .Net reactor related queries, post them to this google group, rather then emailing me directly, as you're more likely to get a response.  Cheers!

If you recall in the last Architecture Chat (#21) Gareth of Slyce Software mentioned the demise of .Net Reactor, a German code obfuscation product that many users swear by.. but over the past 2 or so months it went completely dark as the company ceased responding to any correspondence, or making releases - where as prior they were almost phenomenally fast to get back to queries, and we releasing every couple of weeks.

Well I got an interesting email from a .Net Reactor user who has been suffering the same issues, not having a response out the company in the last couple of months but he did advise that releases are starting to flow out the company again, with 3 new versions released in December... so things could be looking up, even if the wall of silence continues.

Apparently it got so bad that even some add-on vendors have withdrawn in-prorgess products due to a lack of communication with Eziriz - what I find interesting here is how quickly all the good work you can do building up a community around a product for developers can unwind - and demonstrates how important a visible "heartbeat" for a product is to keeping trust in your project - be it through regular releases, actively participating in forums and mailing lists or at the very least publishing the odd bit of news on your site.

Fingers crossed the company starts answering peoples emails again at any rate - it'd be a shame to see a popular product's community turn their back on it just because their worried it's going to dissappear completely.

Right, so yes, there is a point to this post - assuming the worst and .Net Reactor is winding down, can anyone else recommend an obfuscation/licensing products in the sub 300 US$ range that works well?

Edit:

Shortly after posting this I was notified that Apparently everything is good once more in .Net Reactor land with the lead developer having been taken away from development due to other life issues taking over in the later part of last year, but he's back and developing/communicating once more so it should be "business as usual".

I look forward to seeing what cool things Eziriz get up to in 2008!

Edit (Again):

And shortly after that I also got an email, so everything is definitely fine once more with .Net Reactor:

Dear Mr. Henderson, I am sorry for the problems you had with my product support. Gareth Hayter referred me to your blog. Please be sure, .NET Reactor product development/support is firing on all cylinders again.

Best regards,

Denis Mierzwiak, Chief Technical Officer.