Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

freetds - RE: [freetds] snprintf replacement?

freetds AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: FreeTDS Development Group

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry AT mac.com>
  • To: FreeTDS Development Group <freetds AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: FreeTDS Development Group <freetds AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "Lowden, James K" <LowdenJK AT bernstein.com>
  • Subject: RE: [freetds] snprintf replacement?
  • Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 12:05:24 -0600

At 10:34 AM -0500 11/5/04, Lowden, James K wrote:
> > Does anyone know of a public domain snprintf that is complete and
> > robust or can anyone shed further light on the licensing issue?

>It looks like Freddy mooted the point, and the code is better for it.

Yes, but the general problem could come up again, so I'm happy to have your
explanation.

>As for the licensing. FreeTDS is primarily a source distribution; as
>source, there is no licensing issue. Binaries are of course another
>matter, but only an extremely small set of architectures would need
>replacements/snpringtf.c (were it there). Those architectures would be
>prohibited from distributing a binary. But that's not a huge problem;
>after all, how many VMS-for-2-plus-versions-ago binaries are going to be
>(publicly) redistributed?

You'd be surprised. Since the C compiler is an add-on product (and not
cheap), it's common to distribute packages in binary (with source included if
the license requires it). People distributing binaries typically build on
the oldest version they can find in order to be compatible with the widest
range of versions.

>Another way around the issue is to make real use of dynamic libraries.
>Does VMS have that these days? (It's been a long time for me.)

Yes, but it calls them shareable images. I forget if it got them in 1978
(v1.0) or 1980 (v2.0) since I was not much into computers yet back then :-).

> snprintf
>or whatever could be kept out of the source distribution, but offered on
>our server as a stand-alone library. Build it and install it on your
>system, then build and install FreeTDS, linking to it.
>
>Either way, we just make sure the docs and build scripts say, "You can't
>include GPL code in any binary distribution of FreeTDS". When that
>cramps someone's style, we look for a convenient, legal solution.

There are various ways of requiring someone to add their own xyz() function
somewhere downstream. You could require them to provide
src/replacements/xyz.c at build time, an object file or library at link time,
or an entry in a shareable image at run time. These are all enough of a
hassle that I'm glad we've dodged the issue in the snprintf case.
--
________________________________________
Craig A. Berry
mailto:craigberry AT mac.com

"... getting out of a sonnet is much more
difficult than getting in."
Brad Leithauser




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page