15 Nov, 2008, exeter wrote in the 1st comment:
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Out of curiosity, do any of you C coders here use glib? It seems to have a lot to offer in terms of portability aids, utility functions, and easy to use data types. For instance, it features a portable thread inteface (not so useful for MUDs, but neat nonetheless), a nice string type, and an implementation of the Mersenne Twister PRNG.
15 Nov, 2008, elanthis wrote in the 2nd comment:
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::sigh:: lost post while editing.

summary of original: glib is awesome if you're making yourself stick with C, but you can get everything that glib offers except in a much easier to use API by just using C++ and one or two glib-like C++ libraries for the glib features not found in standard C++. If you are sticking with C, though, I highly recommend using glib where appropriate, it does provide a lot of good portable functionality in an easy (for C) API.
15 Nov, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Hmmmm, LGPL *IS* compatible with the Diku license, if I'm remembering correctly?

*ponder*
15 Nov, 2008, exeter wrote in the 4th comment:
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quixadhal said:
Hmmmm, LGPL *IS* compatible with the Diku license, if I'm remembering correctly?

*ponder*


I don't think it is. DIKU's license imposes extra restrictions over and above what LGPL allows you to place on the code, IIRC.

But, for a "blue sky" type of project, not depending on anything else (or, say, only on SocketMud), glib would work well.
15 Nov, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 5th comment:
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I know the regular GPL isn't compatible, but I had thought LGPL was specifically designed to get around software that did impose additional restrictions that the GPL wont' allow?

I haven't read either in quite a while, but isn't the heart of the conflict the fact that the Diku authors forbid the use of their code in any profit-making capacity, and the GPL won't allow that suppression? The LGPL does allow you to release "combined works" which sound (to my non-lawyer ears) like it would work.
15 Nov, 2008, Guest wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
I haven't read either in quite a while, but isn't the heart of the conflict the fact that the Diku authors forbid the use of their code in any profit-making capacity, and the GPL won't allow that suppression? The LGPL does allow you to release "combined works" which sound (to my non-lawyer ears) like it would work.


Yes, the LGPL is a bit more liberal in that it does allow you to create dependency upon libraries licensed with it, and distribute the library code along with your main package. If the legality is important though, check with a lawyer.
15 Nov, 2008, Tyche wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
exeter said:
I don't think it is. DIKU's license imposes extra restrictions over and above what LGPL allows you to place on the code, IIRC.


Yeah Diku can't even use glibc either because of LGPL. Best use msvcrt.dll instead. /sarc
15 Nov, 2008, exeter wrote in the 8th comment:
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Tyche said:
exeter said:
I don't think it is. DIKU's license imposes extra restrictions over and above what LGPL allows you to place on the code, IIRC.


Yeah Diku can't even use glibc either because of LGPL. Best use msvcrt.dll instead. /sarc


LOL. :P Should I have added "I am not a lawyer" to my post, too, to cover my butt? :P
15 Nov, 2008, Tyche wrote in the 9th comment:
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Quote
The LGPL does allow you to release "combined works" which sound (to my non-lawyer ears) like it would work.


Why would you want to bundle glib with your distribution anyway?
15 Nov, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 10th comment:
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*shrug*

Avoiding reinventing the wheel, yet again, for the zillionth time, because of lawyers….

Why does anyone want to use libraries instead of writing everything from the ground up?
15 Nov, 2008, Tyche wrote in the 11th comment:
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Oh I understand why one would want to use it.
Why would you want to bundle glib with your distribution though?
15 Nov, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 12th comment:
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Right, there's a big difference between listing it as a dependency and actually bundling it with your distribution. Anybody on a half-decent platform can get these libraries from their package manager anyhow.
15 Nov, 2008, Guest wrote in the 13th comment:
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Tyche said:
Oh I understand why one would want to use it.
Why would you want to bundle glib with your distribution though?


Doubtful one would want to do such a thing in practice. But usually questions of Diku+LGPL only relate to distribution, which was the reason I commented the way I did.

Just accessing the libraries with your codebase isn't going to cause you problems or plenty of us would already be in deep doodoo.
15 Nov, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 14th comment:
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The usual reason is so that your code works out-of-the-box, without having to include a big list of instructions telling you to google halfway around the universe for all the bits and pieces you used. Requiring gcc and glibc isn't a big stretch these days, as almost any linux or BSD system will have them easily available. Requiring glib is a bit more, since if you dont' have a graphical desktop (GNOME), you probably don't already have glib either.

I guess it brings up the question of how "together" something has to be to be considered "together".

If I add glib features to a DikuMUD, it is a required dependancy, but you have to jump through the hoops to go find it yourself.
If I put glib into the same tarball with DikuMUD, it's being distributed together, and thus the licenses have to be compatible.
If I put glib in one tarball and DikuMUD in another tarball, how close can they be? Can both tarballs be inside another tarball? Can they be in the same directory (which would allow a single ftp or wget command to grab them both – and some ftp servers would send it as an auto-generated tar.gz that gets unpacked by the ftp client-side)? Can they be on the same web server?

I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm curious. Putting two tarballs in the same directory and clearly saying you need both is almost as convenient as having them integrated, but it sounds like a fine line between the letter and spirit of the law.
15 Nov, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
I don't think it'd be considered completely hunky-dory to put the two tarballs up side-by-side, but linking to the download website for the other project would be totally fine.

Of course, I'm not sure how much the people in question would actually care. You could always just ask them; getting their blessing is as good as anything. It's worth keeping in mind that they're trying to hamper "evil corporations" much more so than hobbyists here.
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