Good evening all --
At the risk of getting my head chopped off by some folks who obviously know more and like to point out how stupid others are, I need to ask a few questions related to licensing and the best method to handling some app problems within those confines...
A friend has contracted with a client to produce an app for them under the GNU LGPL terms, which if I'm understanding things correctly means everything is open source. My friend has a very large application written in C++ which is not user friendly and requires a manually configured file to be fed to it to produce the output, so he asked me a few months ago to write an wrapper app which instead of requiring him to modify the input file for each simulation would let him (and his client) to enter data thru my app (with data stored in a DB), and have my app generate the file that his app needs. Basically, my app needs to interact with his app, leading to my questions.
1) If I call his executable (which I've done successfully) do I need to provide his code in the deliverable?
2) If I convert his app to a library and call it that way (haven't tried this) do I need to provide his code?
3) Does his code need to be included within my app?
I have tried to import his code into mine and have unsuccessfully been able to call his "main"; there is no header file and I've tried to make it work with EXTERNs (I'm am not a C++ expert in the least) but no luck. I have also tried to convert his main to a class and call it that way, but now I'm getting a "symbol(s) not found..." error that I'd rather not try to troubleshoot over 50,000+ lines of code, so I guess the *big* question is, what should be the best approach to dealing with this situation and stay within the GNU LGPL agreement? Call the executable (works), and if so do I have to provide the code behind that? Convert his app to a library (not been tried) and leads to the same questions? Fold his app into mine and try to call his "main" without a header file for it (with my C++ experience limited to this app)? Or fold his app to mine and create a header file for his main and work thru the "symbol not found" error?
To sum it all up -- what's the best way to go about combining two apps and stay within the GNU LGPL agreement?
thanks!!
Kodi
Bookmarks