Legal Business

[User Mike]

Thanks for your advice everyone.

blueznl: Hmm, I'll take a look into that. Might make things a little more difficult than they already are, but I'll definitly look into it.

BalrogSoft: Yeah, the source I posted for what I'm trying to do makes things complicated. In short, it's 2 commands in 1 command utilizing 2 commands. It's confusing and I don't know if that counts as a wrapper.

I sent the e-mail yesterday night so hopefully I can get a reply within the next few days. Whatever the matter, I think I might have to get dirty with the winapi rather than my method below. Though, I respect that and don't want to take away anything from the PB team.

[User Mike]

Alright, 1 last post. (Sorry for all the rapid posting. I'm just needing to finish this DLL soon for a few projects)

To boil everything down nice and simple, tell me if these commands are legal to distribute in a DLL.

Returns properties of the current gadget selected.

Code: Select all

ProcedureDLL ReturnGadgetLocation(Gadget,Flag)
  X=GadgetX(Gadget)
  Y=GadgetY(Gadget) 
  Height=GadgetHeight(Gadget) 
  Width=GadgetWidth(Gadget) 
  Items=CountGadgetItems(Gadget) 
  If Flag=1
   MessageRequester("Gadget: "+Str(Gadget)+" Properties ", "Position: "+Str(X)+","+Str(Y)+"    Size: "+Str(Width)+","+Str(Height)+"    Items in Gadget: "+Str(Items) )
  Else
   EndIf
   
EndProcedure

Sets the gadget to be invisible, delete, show, enable, etc.

Code: Select all

ProcedureDLL SetDisplayGadget(Gadget,Flag)

If Flag=1
  FreeGadget(Gadget) 
EndIf

If Flag=2
  HideGadget(Gadget, 1) ;1= hidden 0 = show
EndIf

If Flag=3
  HideGadget(Gadget, 0) ;1= hidden 0 = show
EndIf

If Flag=4
  ClearGadgetItemList(Gadget) 
EndIf

If Flag=5
  DisableGadget(Gadget, 1) ; 1 be disabled,  0 it will be enabled
EndIf

If Flag=6
  DisableGadget(Gadget, 0) ; 1 be disabled,  0 it will be enabled
EndIf

EndProcedure

Tells which file requester to use

Code: Select all

ProcedureDLL FileRequeste(Title$,Text$,Pattern$,PatternPosition,Flag,Retrieve) 

If Flag=1 
  Filename$=SaveFileRequester(Title$, DefaultFile$, Pattern$, PatternPosition) 
  If Retrieve=1 
    Path$ = GetPathPart(Filename$) 
    Extension$ = GetFilePart(Filename$) 
    Size = FileSize(FileName$) 
    
    MessageRequester("Retrieved Data","Filepath: "+Path$+""+Extension$+"   "+"File Size: "+Str(Size) ) 
  EndIf 
EndIf 
If Retrieve=2 
  Filename$=OpenFileRequester(Title$, DefaultFile$, Pattern$, PatternPosition) 
    If Flag2=1 
    Path$ = GetPathPart(Filename$) 
    Extension$ = GetFilePart(Filename$) 
    Size = FileSize(FileName$) 
    
    MessageRequester("Retrieved Data","Filepath: "+Path$+""+Extension$+"   "+"File Size: "+Str(Size) ) 
    EndIf 
EndIf 


EndProcedure 

Assuming all of my functions in my DLL's were like this (many commands put into a function determined by flags which to use), is this legal to distribute a DLL?

[Kale]

ReturnGadgetLocation(Gadget,Flag) looks ok to me because its actually doing something but the other 2 just look like illegal wrappers imo.

[User Mike]

Hmm, I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. Return Gadget isn't going to be too helpful if I don't have any gadgets.

How about this one?

(A button/image gadget function. Read documentation if you'd like to use it.)

Code: Select all

;This command will create a button. Gadget specifies the gadget number.X and Y specify
;the positions and Width and Height specify the dimensions of the gadget.
;If the Flag is set to 1 then you can replace Text$ with any value. For this instance,
;the image ID doesn't apply. 
;If the Flag is set to 2, then the Text$ doesn't apply to the button, yet you must specify an 
;image for the button to use. 
;For either flag, you  may set up a tooltip by Replacing the ToolTip$ with a string. If
;no value is set, no tool tip will be displayed.


ProcedureDLL CreateButton(Gadget, x, y, Width, Height, Flag,Text$,ImageID,ToolTip$)

If Flag=1
 ButtonGadget(Gadget, x, y, Width, Height, Text$ , #PB_Button_Default) 
EndIf

If Flag=2
  ButtonImageGadget(Gadget, x, y, Width, Height, ImageID)
EndIf


If ToolTip$ <>""

GadgetToolTip(Gadget, ToolTip$) 

EndIf


EndProcedure

[Paul]

Why not just use common sense??

Your procedure is to create a button... and you then use native PB commands to create a button. All you have done is wrap PB commands (which is basically giving people who have not purchased PB, access to PB commands).


Regardless, you are asking the wrong people for legal advice about this. The only true and absolute answer can come from Fred himself at Fantaisie Software, who creates PB and makes the rules. The rest of us here are just users/customers who can only give out own personal opinions, interpretation or beliefs.

Danilo has already pointed this out to you...

Contact Fantaisie Software at alphasnd@purebasic.com
and ask there - they can answer it for your specific product
if you show them source examples.

[PolyVector]

haha, finally! :roll:

Just use the WinAPI and everything will be legit... Then you can feel proud that you did it yourself

Mike, if you take a minute to think about the years of work that have gone into purebasic, and the miles of code that comprise the gadget system alone... This shouldn't even be a question...
Now if PB was freeware that might be a different story, but Fred is doing this to make some money, so let's not short-change him by giving away or selling his work.

[User Mike]

Argh, I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
*Smacks self*

I guess I might as well start now. If Fred gets my e-mail I'm sure he'll be able to clarify this.

No need to reply any more.

***Thread Locked Problem Solved***



[Edit] PolyVector by all means, I don't want to short change Fred at all. That's why I created to clarify to myself what would be legal or not.

[PolyVector]

I know that wasn't your intentions... it's always good to stop and think about these things tho'

[User Mike]

Hehe, already getting my hands dirty and mangled into the WinAPI.



<----- First time messing with WinAPI.

[LarsG]

atleast the API should keep you out of the legal mumbo jumbo...

[blueznl]

maybe the mental institution you end up in can charge fred for yout future state?

[thefool]

user mike,

you can not do like this:

proceduredll msgbox(title.s,msg.s)
messagerequester(title.s,msg.s)
endprocedure

thats a wrapper.
But, if you use VD to make a gui that does exactly like a messagerequester (design a window that can show a message), that is legal.

I think you can use the messagebox_() api also,

thats what i know. I have contacted fred about this before, and this is what i remember.

Regards, Daniel.

[User Mike]

Hehe, I may be in a mental institution at 20 worrying about all the legal junk these days.

Thanks everyone for your help. Fred has contacted me, and everyone of these code snippets would not be legal to distribute. I respect that, so as mentioned before I'll have to use the winapi.

[ricardo]

Why don't you code you app all in PureBasic and then forget about all this complications?

[RJP Computing]

I am all for giving credit to those how deserve it, but I have to be the devils advocate here. What about the commands in PureBasic that our direct wrappers of the WinAPI. You don't have a problem there, so I almost don't see the issue.

For example,

Code: Select all

   PB                WinAPI
-----------------------------------------
MessageRequester -> MessageBox
GadgetID         -> GetDlgItem
HideWindow       -> ShowWindow

Please don't flame me. I am just tring to look at the problem differently.