Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/02/20/23:58:26
Dominique Biesmans (Dominique DOT Biesmans AT ping DOT be) wrote:
: Sorry, I don't really know the details of the GPL. But basically,
: you're saying, as long as you don't link GPL'ed libraries, and you
: just use GPL'ed tools (like gcc), you don't have to worry?
There are two separate licenses - the GPL (General Public License) and the
LGPL (Library General Public License). The LGPL requires you (among other
things) to release the full source code to any program which uses routines
from the library. As an example, libc is under GPL but libgpp is under LGPL.
Consequently, you can decide whether or not to release the source for any C
programs you write using libc, but if you write C++ programs using libgpp
you must release the source.
For information on this, type info gcc copying (this is the GPL) or info
libg++ copying (this is the LGPL).
: >done, but needs to be looked at to see just how hard.
: >
: >Cygnus put a lot of work into their libc, which is fine since DJGPP has
: >it's own.
I missed this post. I don't think much of the DOS/DPMI specific libc would
be relevant under Windows.
: >What's left? Reinventing the Windows header files which is a lot of
: >tedious, mind-numbing work, but not technically difficult? BUilding a
: >resource compiler? SOmeone said this wasn't to bad.
Maybe we can use the resource compiler from RSXNTDJ? I'm not sure of the
license on this, and the bloody thing's all in Windows help format... :)
However, when we have a working compiler, I suggest we write our own
graphical resource compiler, running in Windows. Having used Turbo Pascal
for Windows, which had a graphical rc, I can see the many advantages. It's
a lot easier to design menu systems, lay out dialog boxes, etc. if you can
see how it will look as you're designing it.
: Hmm, I guess peeking in to the code of Cygwin's win32 stuff could
: provide a lot of information, but just 'turning it on for DJGPP' seems
: a little bit too easy, not? Not that it has to be difficult, but I
: suspect there is a little bit more behind it.
Well, we can't just steal their code. I think it's important to keep this
in the spirit of DJGPP, i.e. (a) free and freely distributable, (b) no
restrictions on distribution of applications built with it. The Cygnus
licensing does not allow us to simply take useful parts of their code
without LGPLing our tools, which would force users to distribute their
source, which is a Bad Thing (IMHO).
We really need to set up an organised development team here, discuss
options and plan our approach to this. I think it would be useful to
know at this stage how many people we have who are willing to help, and in
what capacity. We need a number of people who are very knowledgeable about
low-level Windows programming (file formats, etc), we also need competent
programmers and preferably people with experience at Windows programming.
As Eli stated up-thread, this is an important project. Windows programming
is just about the only thing commercial compilers can do that DJGPP can't,
which really ought to change. If a few isolated groups of professionals can
manage it without sharing code, surely we can do the same thing, having all
the benefits of freely distributed code?
--
George Foot <gfoot AT mc31 DOT merton DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk>
Merton College, Oxford.
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