ritePen developer question

[Owen Sullivan 0]

Hi there,

Not sure if this is an appropriate place to ask (please direct me elsewhere if not), but I'm wondering if anyone knows of the best way to get in contact with a developer that would be familiar with an old Evernote product called ritePen. It's been discontinued for many years now, but my dad still uses it daily and I want to see about speaking with a developer about reviewing the program's source code to possibly add new features or remove licensing functionality for if he ever needs to move his installation to a new device.

Thanks in advance!

[agsteele 2,944]

I think ritePen was a third party product. If the company has closed then you have no real hope of achieving what you desire. It probably only works with the so called Legacy version of Evernote which is, itself, no longer supported and will die at some point in the future.

 

 

[Owen Sullivan 0]

Yeah, it was a third-party product. I don't think it was ever even integrated into any version of Evernote, just sold as a standalone product. That's why I'm hopeful that if there's a source code archive somewhere then Evernote hopefully won't mind just releasing it, since they aren't ever going to be making money off of it again.

[gazumped 11,658]

18 minutes ago, Owen Sullivan said:

Evernote hopefully won't mind just releasing it

Hi.  If this was a third-party product,  it was written by another company and would have used Evernote's published API to link into the application.  Evernote would have no particular knowledge of the app or the developer,  and would have no power to 'release' anything. 

I'd never heard of it in 15 years of using Evernote,  but maybe an internet search or two might help you - the name at least is still out there... RitePen for Windows - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download

[agsteele 2,944]

I don't think Evernote will have the source code. It wasn't theirs in the first place 

[Guest]

It does look like it was a division of Evernote.  I'm trying to dig around in the repositories.  You're talking about Evernote version 4.0.  I found some code called riteScript and riteSpell but they're not a complete product.  I'll poke around in some spare time.  It's possible the source is in an older source database that predates our github.

I saw this in the license : "Ritescript (a divison of Evernote Corporation)"

[Owen Sullivan 0]

26 minutes ago, RMorgan said:

It does look like it was a division of Evernote.  I'm trying to dig around in the repositories.  You're talking about Evernote version 4.0.  I found some code called riteScript and riteSpell but they're not a complete product.  I'll poke around in some spare time.  It's possible the source is in an older source database that predates our github.

I saw this in the license : "Ritescript (a divison of Evernote Corporation)"

Yep, you’ve got it. RiteScript was the company that originally made it, if I recall correctly, and Evernote absorbed them years back. ritePen is the name of the full product, I can provide a zip of the binaries if that helps narrow down your search. 
 

Thanks so much for looking into this for me!

[Guest]

I've found the original developers and I'm seeing if I can find the source.  I don't know if we can release the source but I will ask our security and legal teams once I find it.

 Give me some time... this is some deep Software Archaelogy. 😃 

[Owen Sullivan 0]

Awesome, I’ll look forward to hearing what they say about it. If it’s not possible to open-source it, maybe a perpetual license could be generated or it could be re-released as freeware without the licensing requirement? Anyway, thanks again just for trying!

[Guest]

Looks like we did only get a DLL from the rite people so we don't have access to source.  It's such and old system that I can't find anyone who has a copy of the code.  Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[Owen Sullivan 0]

Alright, no worries then. Thanks a ton for looking!

[Guest]

I have found some source.. looking at how complete it is.  At the moment it doesn't lnk and I think it's only the UI source code.

[Owen Sullivan 0]

Hey, progress is progress! If that leads to more source, great — if not, no sweat.

[Sugeeth Krish 475]

Ritepen was a product from the EverNote stable, indeed. But this dates back even before the Phil Libin era, sometime around 2004-05. 

It was still EverNote (capital N) and Stepan Pachikov alone was involved in the company at this time. 

Later in 2008, Libin joined them, and they renamed and formed a new company 'evernote' ( with a smaller 'n') .. well .. yeah  

Edited February 15, 2023 by SK_123