> > > Michael - if none of your developers look at the Delphi source code, I > > > shudder to think at the standard of programming they produce. I've never > met > > > a professional programmer who doesn't at least look at headers/interface > > > sections of code to understand how a routine works. Not doing so is > > > completely alien to the way I work normally, and I am not alone in this > > > either. > > Your developer was refering to the people you work with that you mentioned > do not look at Delphi source. Not FPC people.
Ok. But that is quite common btw, specially for people that use RADs. (type-ahead and function syntax in those floating over texts). I also did that when I used JBuilder. > > How do you propose to look without violating copyrights? We have to > > reverse engineer free Delphi apps to see what they call, and how they > > call it. > > Free CLX contains a large chunk of the RTL, and is already supporting Linux > and Windows. I see sysutils, sysinit, system, types, variants, math, > inifiles, syncobjs, typinfo, classes, contnrs, and a whole host of Linux > specific units such as LibC. > All the code is under GPL according to sf.net project page, and so all > should be usable in some way shape or form by FPC developer without fear > of reverse engineering. Yes, maybe to peek at, but not to use (when I last looked it was only the QT part, and only a bit bad), since that would contaminate FPC's license, and disallow commercial use of FPC generated binaries. I did use parts to test 1.1.x compability about half an year ago, when widestrings started to work a bit (as least their parsing), but in general it is confusing due to a lot subtle internal differences. However 1.1.x keeps getting better, and maybe it can be ported sometime, as compiler test or so. > Look at Syllable (also of SF iirc.) This project has branched a complete > operating system that was GPL, so Borland wouldn't have a leg to stand on > imho. If it remains GPL, that is not a problem, but we don't want the libraries GPL (the compiler and other end-user programs are though, but not the runtime libraries, since that would hamper users to distribute generated binaries without those apps themselves getting GPL'ed) _______________________________________________ fpc-pascal maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
