qt dll naming question

Chris January chris at atomice.net
Sat Jan 8 22:54:14 CET 2005


> Chris January wrote:
> >>On Saturday 08 January 2005 15:29, "Thiago A. Corrêa" wrote:
> >>
> >>>Ralf Habacker wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Hi all,
> >>>>
> >>
> >><snip>
> >>
> >>>>The question is now, how does trolltech handle this stuff. Does
> >>>>anyone know if their release numbering system is 
> >>
> >>technical, say by
> >>
> >>>>api changes or political driven ?
> >>>>
> >>>>cygwin for example uses a mixed system depending on the related
> >>>>package. Basically the use only on number, the major number, but 
> >>>>there are also packages, which uses the minor number too and some 
> >>>>packages uses additional the patch level number.
> >>>
> >>>Trolltech usually break binary compability only in major
> >>
> >>releases, the
> >>
> >>>middle number changes when new classes are added.
> >>>
> >>
> >>That mean we should use only the major number like cygwin does.
> > 
> > 
> > Yes - I think Trolltech probably assume people will be distributing 
> > the Qt DLL with their apps on Windows so it doesn't matter 
> about the 
> > version granularity. However because Qt/Win Free is GPL 
> people would 
> > not only have to distribute the Qt DLL with their apps, but 
> also make 
> > the full source available. Far better to get people to simply point 
> > users to the kde-cygwin site to download the binary and source. 
> > However if we adopt this policy it would be better to 
> switch to only 
> > using the major version number, as you say, so that people 
> can always 
> > download the latest version without any issues.
> > 
> > Chris
> 
> They have to distribute their own compiled binaries anyway since ABI 
> between compilers is not guaranteed :)
> 
> Since *most* GPL software is distributed over the internet, 
> developers 
> using the GPLed Qt can simply point to this project somewhere 
> in their 
> documentation, that would satisfy the GPL since it's the same medium 
> that the user got his binary ( internet )

This is incorrect. The FSF have said the GPL sources need to be on the same
site as the GPL binaries. It's no good simply linking to them.

Chris



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