Deploy Lazarus components without sources

[EasyTEF Team]

Hi everyone!

In Delphi, when I create a component, I need a package (.dpk) to compile and install it. Same way as Lazarus (.lpk).

Delphi's package output is a binary file (.bpl) that can be installed by itself, without needing of it sources, that means that I can deploy Delphi components without it sources.

Is there a way to do the same with Lazarus, ie, deploy Lazarus components without it sources?

Thanx!

[DirkS]

See http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Packages#Creating_a_closed_sourced_package

Gr.
Dirk.

[TurboRascal]

Yet I believe that might be quite a hard task because of ABI changes betveen FPC and LCL versions...

I guess you should provide binaries for every Lazarus and FPC versions combination that's likely to occur, but that might be too much work and different files to distribute, so you should choose the most likely targets. Remember, binary component packages for Delphi are also distributed with different files for each version.

That's from the technical side, but I guess all those problems might be moot since Lazarus IDE is GPL licensed, so I'm not sure you could really legally offer binary-only components for it (they must be linked with it, and I don't see licence exceptions allowing that?)

[eny]

That's from the technical side, but I guess all those problems might be moot since Lazarus IDE is GPL licensed, so I'm not sure you could really legally offer binary-only components for it (they must be linked with it, and I don't see licence exceptions allowing that?)

Sure you can; you just can't publish the component under the GPL license nor can it be incorporated in the FPC/Lazarus base.

[fabienwang]

GPL licence has exceptions (section 7) and components or programs that we code with Lazarus can use any Licence

[marcov]

GPL licence has exceptions (section 7) and components or programs that we code with Lazarus can use any Licence

That goes for the generated applications.  However the designtime code (that often uses the entire components code) links to a GPL app. (lazarus). But this only comes into effect, when you start distributing the Lazarus IDE with the commercial component prelinked. (and contrary to urban myth, BPLs change nothing in the licensing picture. Linking is linking, static or dynamic)

See also http://wiki.freepascal.org/licensing

The following URL is more or an analysis of the packages (BPL) feature, and how it would apply to FPC/Lazarus. Due to multitude of platforms and versions, I don't think Delphi's binary package model will ever be realistic for Delphi: http://wiki.freepascal.org/packages

[TurboRascal]

GPL licence has exceptions (section 7) and components or programs that we code with Lazarus can use any Licence

You must be thinking of the VCL's LGPL licence... I was talking of the IDE's GPL...