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  • GnuCOBOL 3.2 RC2 (11Feb2023) binaries for Windows

    From Arnold Trembley@21:1/5 to All on Sat Feb 11 03:00:45 2023
    With many thanks to Chuck Haatvedt and Simon Sobisch, you can now build GnuCOBOL Release Candidate 2 for Windows in 32-bit and 64-bit versions
    using MSYS2. These builds include gmplib 6.2.1, PDCursesMod 4.3.5,
    Berkeley DataBase 18.1.40 (for ISAM), and GCSORT.exe. MSYS2 uses GCC
    12.2.0 as the embedded C Compiler. These binaries also include XML
    parsing, cJSON, code coverage testing, and debugging support. You can
    download a binary compressed with 7-Zip and rename the file extension
    from "7z" to "exe". Then you can run it as a self-installing archive.
    See the STARTHERE.txt file, or open a cmd.exe window in the install
    folder, and run "set_env.cmd" to set the environment variables. You can
    also download the MSYS2-Build-Kit.7z archive which contains the Build
    Guide in LibreOffice DOCX format and in PDF format.

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/GC32M-BDB-x64-rc2-rename-7z-to-exe.7z

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/GC32M-BDB-x32-rc2-rename-7z-to-exe.7z

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/MSYS2-Build-Kit-v05.7z

    https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/discussion/help/thread/446042b769/


    Kind regards,


    --
    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=@21:1/5 to Arnold Trembley on Sat Feb 11 10:57:48 2023
    On 2/11/2023 4:00 AM, Arnold Trembley wrote:
    With many thanks to Chuck Haatvedt and Simon Sobisch, you can now build GnuCOBOL Release Candidate 2 for Windows in 32-bit and 64-bit versions
    using MSYS2. These builds include gmplib 6.2.1, PDCursesMod 4.3.5,
    Berkeley DataBase 18.1.40 (for ISAM), and GCSORT.exe. MSYS2 uses GCC
    12.2.0 as the embedded C Compiler. These binaries also include XML
    parsing, cJSON, code coverage testing, and debugging support. You can download a binary compressed with 7-Zip and rename the file extension
    from "7z" to "exe". Then you can run it as a self-installing archive.
    See the STARTHERE.txt file, or open a cmd.exe window in the install
    folder, and run "set_env.cmd" to set the environment variables. You can
    also download the MSYS2-Build-Kit.7z archive which contains the Build
    Guide in LibreOffice DOCX format and in PDF format.

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/GC32M-BDB-x64-rc2-rename-7z-to-exe.7z

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/GC32M-BDB-x32-rc2-rename-7z-to-exe.7z

    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/MSYS2-Build-Kit-v05.7z

    https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/discussion/help/thread/446042b769/

    I wonder if all GnuCOBOL users actually understand the
    implications from BDB being under AGPL (while VBISAM being
    under LGPL).

    It is mentioned in the dist DEPENDENCIES.txt and in
    the FAQ item 1.3 about licenses, but sometimes people
    don't read that stuff.

    And speaking of BDB. Has anyone considered switching
    from latest Oracle BDB (under AGPL) to the Bloomberg
    fork of the original Sleepycat code (under BSD like licenses)?

    I think most are fine with GnuCOBOL itself being
    under GPL, but the runtime is a different matter -
    there is a reason why LGPL and GPL with linking
    exception was invented.

    Arne

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  • From Arnold Trembley@21:1/5 to All on Sat Feb 11 20:03:51 2023
    On 2/11/2023 9:57 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
    On 2/11/2023 4:00 AM, Arnold Trembley wrote:
    (snip)

    I wonder if all GnuCOBOL users actually understand the
    implications from BDB being under AGPL (while VBISAM being
    under LGPL).

    It is mentioned in the dist DEPENDENCIES.txt and in
    the FAQ item 1.3 about licenses, but sometimes people
    don't read that stuff.

    And speaking of BDB. Has anyone considered switching
    from latest Oracle BDB (under AGPL) to the Bloomberg
    fork of the original Sleepycat code (under BSD like licenses)?

    I think most are fine with GnuCOBOL itself being
    under GPL, but the runtime is a different matter -
    there is a reason why LGPL and GPL with linking
    exception was invented.

    Arne



    This is an issue that has been discussed in the Sourceforge GnuCOBOL
    forums. After Oracle bought BDB, any later releases have a more
    restrictive license that makes it difficult to build commercial programs
    that include Oracle BDB. The distributor must either provide full
    source code (including GnuCOBOL programs) or else pay a license fee to
    Oracle to keep their COBOL programs proprietary. At least that is my understanding, but I am not a lawyer. The GnuCOBOL developers would
    prefer that all components be compatible with GPL and LGPL licensing.

    I haven't tried building GnuCOBOL with BDB (published 2013-09-09), but
    it is something I will look into.

    There is an interesting Wikipedia article on Berkeley Database: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_DB

    The GnuCOBOL developers are looking into replacing BDB with VBISAM,
    which uses version 3 of GPL and LGPL licenses. But VBISAM is currently
    not as robust as BDB and does not currently appear to support record
    locking.

    Current GnuCOBOL does have improved support for EXTFH (External File
    Handlers), so it is possible to use alternate software for ISAM support.

    Kind regards,

    --
    https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/

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