[fpc-devel] ZEOS Contribution Offer

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Helmut Hartl wrote:

> I speak in the name of the ZEOS Developers.
> 
> We want to contribute to the FPC Project, in the form that we
> 
> deliver a FPC usable Version of the ZEOS DBO.
> 
>  
> 
> If you don't know ZEOS by now, it is a set of mature database components
> 
> usable visual or nonvisual, wich interface to SQLite, MySQL, 
> 
> PostgreSQL, Interbase, Firebird,Oracle and others.
> 
> Normally the latest versions are supported.
> 
>  
> 
> Currently we are preparing the 6.6 Version. (beta cycle).
> 
> We will change our licensing terms to make it LGPL with the
> 
> FPC / Lazarus static linking exception.
> 
> The library works fine for Delphi's, FPC under Windows and Linux.

Thank you very much for your offer.
Since this would be a rather substantial addition to the FPC
sources, I will discuss this with the core team, to see what 
we can do. However, I am in favour of including ZEOS.

HOWEVER:

We are currently working on a package managing system for FPC.
This is something which is similar to rpm and smart/yum for linux.
Or CPAN for Perl. It's 80% ready, currently.

Basically it means that
1. Makefiles are history. 
2. The package manager will download and compile all that is needed
   to compile your code.

In this system we will be maintaining a repository of 'known' packages,
which are not included in FPC by default, but which can be downloaded
from a well-known location. The package manager will then download
and install them as needed.

The upshot of all this is that we don't need to include all packages
in FPC by default, making the maintenance burden smaller for the core 
team. All you would need to do is create one small driver file,
and the rest will be automated for you. 
The central repository access will also be automated.

Michael.