In the talkback of my post on 10 Days of Turbos, Jolyon Smith (if this is the real name) pointed out that there is a disconnection between the term used by the Licence manager (Trial License -- No) and the License Agreement that refers to an Evaluation License and Named User License. Responding to this post, Nick Hodges (Delphi Product Manager at DevCo) clearly states that:
You can develop commercial applications with the Turbo Explorer editions. That's a fact.
To this, Marcel Popescu further replies with some doubts. However, if you read the License Agreement, it states that Evaluation Licenses are for a limited period of time, typically 30 days. Now, the Explorer Licenses are limited in time, but for a huge amount of time (10 Years!). Moveover, the License file Borland sends you for the Turbos, when displayed in the License Manager, clearly states that commercial use is possible:
Non-commercial use only --- No
Trial license --- false
Term type --- Fixed Date
Remaining days --- 36543
Although I'm not an expert in licensing issues, the way I read it is that: (i) by reading the license text and the license file information, the fact you are legally allowed to deploy commercial applications built with the Turbos seems clear, (ii) Borland in any case should fix the wording of the License to match more closely what the License Manager states.
Now I know all the "mister precise" out there will disagree with my stance, but I could not let the discussion in the thread remain open, so I tried my best!