As you may know, I've started up an open source Eclipse distribution called CDT for Windows out on SourceForge. (If you haven't, feel free to take a look ;). My top objective for this distribution is to help out people who have Windows machines and who want to try out using Eclipse for C/C++ development. We've received numerous complaints and bug reports from people who've tried to make something like this on their own. And so far the reception for this distribution has been warm and I'm pretty happy with it and excited about its future.
One thing that is bothering me, though, is that I can't release something like this from Eclipse itself. Mind you now, I didn't really try, but I think the feedback I got when I talked about it was that there was no way the Eclipse Board would allow the tools and libraries that are GPL and LGPL licensed and with uncertain pedigree to be released from an Eclipse server. And I am the first one to stand up and promote why these legal requirements are important to ensure the pedigree of products that would like to redistribute Eclipse. But, I wouldn't begin to expect vendors to redistribute CDT for Windows. So why does this still bother me?
I guess it comes back to the reason why I'm doing CDT for Windows in the first place. I'm trying to grow the CDT community into the Windows development space. If you've heard me speak, you know I've been trying to do this for years. Visual Studio obviously rules there, but I think Eclipse has a lot to offer Windows developers. And there are lots of them. If we can grow the CDT community there and make them happy, this should help the CDT. And having a good base of CDT users should also make developer products that target for other platforms, like the one from my employer ;), more attractive, making the Eclipse membership happy too.
So, I'm doing this for the benefit of Eclipse. But I can't do it at Eclipse. And the irony isn't lost on me. But at the same time, I'm really enjoying the freedom I'm having doing this at SourceForge. It may come around and bite me in the behind at some point. But for now, CDT for Windows users can benefit from it even if does come from SourceForge, which is where many of the packages I'm distributing are coming from anyway...
In my opinion your distribution is eactly the kind of thing we need to make Eclipse successful on Windows. Nice work putting it together. I don't want to dive into the license wars, but I agree it's a less than optimal solution having to host it on sf.net.
ReplyDeleteWhat kinds of options can we come up with to better support this kind of integration without sandbagging our own efforts to promote the EPL?
what about visual GUI designer for CDT? if that doesn't exist, CDT is good but for quickly creating command line tools, not for programs with GUIs
ReplyDeleteDoug, this is an excellent effort. I agree that making Eclipse more "product" like, meaning ease of consumption and install, is extremely important for it to make inroads into new user areas.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: which bits are GPL/LGPL? Is it the installer? If yes, I thought the packaging project was investigating installer options?
I am restricting GPL to the build and debug tools. All libraries will be LGPL or other non-"viral" licenses to allow users to build proprietary applications.
ReplyDeleteThe installer is Inno Setup which has it's own license that appears to be BSD-like. It is free for all uses, including commercial. The other option I looked at was NSIS but it's a lot more complicated.
The requirement is to have a standard looking Windows installer. I'm not sure where EPP is on that.
Doug, we have similar requirements at Apache, particularly about what licenses are allowed for software distributed from ASF servers and mirrors. So as odd as it may seem, it make sense that the foundation wants to keep the message and code it sends out consistent.
ReplyDeleteThough one thing we did at Apache recently is open a new project called "Labs" as basically an open SVN repository for committers. There are still requirements on licenses and releases, but it allows committers to experiment more easily than opening up a project on SourceForge or Google Code.
I came across this posting and was curious what your package contains. Unfortunately the link to sf.net and any searching for "CDT for Windows" on sf.net is coming back without your project.
ReplyDeleteMight you have an updated link?
Yes, the project is now called Wascana. I ran into trademark issues calling it CDT for Windows. That and it gives this distro it's own identity.
ReplyDelete