Re: Fw: CDDB library

Hello,

Wednesday, October 23, 2002, 5:00:34 PM, Leslie Polzer wrote:

> I thought hard about whether
> I should use C or C++, as more people would be able to use a C library,
> but ended up with C++ being the language of choice because it makes for
> so much mores structured programming and reusability.
> I expect to get this done in the next few weeks, but I do not plan to add
> the discid, help, log, motd, update and whom commands.
> Please tell me whether you have a different opinion regarding this.

The log, update and whom commands aren't available to endusers anyway,
so implementing them makes no sense.
Help wouldn't really be helpful, as your libary handles the access and
the user doesn't have to do it by hand - so no need to read that help
information. The motd is always the same on our servers and contains
no crucial information, so it's not really interesting. Last, but not
least the discid: as long as you have implemented the discid
calculation correctly in your component, I don't think you need to
implement that command.

> I would also appreciate advice on whether direct CD-ROM access should
> be left to the developer or integrated in the library.

That's probably a question applications developers would have to
answer. I think that it might be helpful to include the
CD-ROM-access...

> I am also unsure about the license, all I know is that it will be free
> software ("free" in terms of the GPL).

I personally would prefer a less strict license for such a library -
e.g. the LGPL. This enables developers to use the component also in
closed source applications, while making sure, that the library code
itself stays free.

> Regarding portability: I develop the library under Linux24, but I am
> aiming for full POSIX-OS portability and would also like to get this
> thing working under Win32 (with the help of other developers, as I am
> not very competent in Windows programming).

> Please tell me what you think about my plans on a "libcddb".

I'd call it libfreedb ;)

- Joerg