Bajusz Tamás (btami) asked Jan Ischebeck (siesel) about
i18n (unicode default) changes to forms status. Jan said
its allmost ready, just some small
parts still have to made ready f.e. the way database encodings
are set.
Jan still hadn't
worked on "unicodification" of
GParser entities f.e. the "name" type should be converted to
unicode, because it's used for labels etc
. Also, as he
was planning to commit some of the
unicode changes to forms etc. Because common is changed to,
some parts of reports possibly won't work as expected so it
will be like the _() i18n changes i.e. there will be much to
be fixed problems, which I can't check for, because I don't
use reports regualary. I think, that now (after 0.5.1) is
the time for changes like that, so I just want to ask if you
have objections or what do you think about it.
The
changes basically should affect the
return type for strings is unicode instead of string when doing
database access. It could made optional, so that f.e. gnue-pos
can keep using normal string
. Jan promised to talk
about this more later.
Bajusz Tamás (btami) asked whether applications
written with the GNUe tools would
have to be GPL-ed
(i.e. released under the GNU General Public License).
Reinhard Müller (reinhard) said
no - of course you would
not even _want_ to write proprietary software - but if you
really want, you can write prop software with gnue
.
He explained only the tools
are gpl - so you have to provide the source for gnue-forms,
gnue-common etc
. James Thompson (jamest) said
you can make prop forms, reports, etc -
but you couldn't embed gnue-common in your app
.
However, as Reinhard noted, in practice,
i don't see how you would
hide the source of a form from your user ;-)
James suggested i wonder if a
person could do a pgp type setup w/ forms/reports/etc -
so that forms could be encrypted w/ a private key -
and the public key distributed with app
.
Tamás said that he personally would prefer to
release applications he wrote under the GPL, but his
company would need to be convinced of the benefits of
this. Reinhard saud the
main benefit is getting back imporvements from the
community
- this
is for example what i experienced with you last week with
your fixes to appserver :)
Also, opening up the
source reduced the reliance on key individuals - this was
especially significant for smaller software houses.
Also, don't forget
you don't have to open the source code to the world -
you just have to open it to your customer -
and let him open it to whomever he likes. Most customers
will probably keep it to themselves anyway
.
The gpl doesn't say you
have to give your code to anyone - you can keep it all for
yourself if you like - but _when_ you give it away, you have
to 1. give the source code, too 2. let the receiver give it
to any 3rd persons he wants under the same conditions.
So it might be totally normal to write code under gpl
- and give it only to a single customer
. There
was no requirement under GPL to make the source available to
all and sundry, for example by putting it on an anonymous
CVS service like savannah. der.hans (LuftHans) noted
also, technically you don't have to give
the source code to your customers, you just have to make it
available to them
. Reinhard agreed -
i provide a "written offer"
myself instead of the source code
when installing
Debian GNU/Linux for clients.
Bajusz Tamás (btami) asked what
is the correct way if i fix a packaging error
for the stand-alone
Windows 32 version of the GNUe Tools
and build a new setup exe?
James Thompson (jamest) suggested gut tells
me we should re-release w/ new point number - 0.5.2
. Jason Cater
(jcater) was not so sure - even if it's
just a packaging error?
Tamás
confirmed the designers toolbar wizards
doesn't work in setup exe - just a packaging error
. Jeff Bailey
(jbailey) suggested add a .1 to the end.
James felt 0.5.1.1 is fine too - but I think
we need way to mark the diff
. Mike Vincent (Vee) suggested
designating it as 0.5.1-1, but Jeff pointed out that
Versions with -'s are used by
GNU/Linux
distributions such as Debian to signify different packages of the same
underlying version of an application, so unless
all win32 versions are going to start -1, -2 for sub releases, it will
just get confusing.
.