is a MDB "open source"?

[bulk88]

If a distribute a access database/program as a .mdb, does it qualify
as open source?

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

If a distribute a access database/program as a .mdb, does it qualify
as open source?

sure, in sense anyone that posts code for others to use is adopting the idea
of sharing their code...

The amount of free downloads, free posts, and free sharing of ms-access code
is one of the HUGE advantages of using the product....

There is a gold mine of free "open" code for your taking here:

http://www.mvps.org/access/

 

[Larry Linson]

If a distribute a access database/program as
a .mdb, does it qualify as open source?

The .MDB file format does not _imply_ Open Source or any other category of
use.

Open Source is a type of license to use something (there are several
licenses classed as "open source" with somewhat different terms and
conditions), and you can legally put as many or as few limits on the user of
an Access database that is your original work as you wish. An .MDB can be
licensed as everything from Public Domain (which anyone is free to use as
their own in any way they desire) to very stringent Terms and Conditions,
with Access or other security used to help enforce them.

For details on intellectual property, and protection of it, you should
consult an attorney in your jurisdiction who specializes in intellectual
property, patent, and copyright law.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[David W. Fenton]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

If a distribute a access database/program as a .mdb, does it
qualify as open source?

To those of us outside the Open Source religion, it would, because
we see you providing all the code someone needs to alter it if they
like.

To those who are adherents of the Open Source religion, it would not
be, because it can only be run inside an application whose source is
not available.

I doubt that in real Open Source circles that anyone would count an
unsecured Access MDB as "open source."

 

[Larry Linson]

To those who are adherents of the Open Source
religion, it would not be, because it can only be
run inside an application whose source is
not available.

There are quite a lot of Open Source software packages for Windows, David.
The Open Source community doesn't seem to raise a great deal of objection to
those. I have some on my machine, obtained from the SourceForge site. Two
are FileZilla for FTP and 7-ZIP for File Compression/Decompression (in ZIP
and other formats).

I doubt that in real Open Source circles that anyone
would count an unsecured Access MDB as "open
source."

Maybe the folks who do SourceForge aren't "true believers," though.

 

[David W. Fenton]

There are quite a lot of Open Source software packages for
Windows, David. The Open Source community doesn't seem to raise a
great deal of objection to those. I have some on my machine,
obtained from the SourceForge site. Two are FileZilla for FTP and
7-ZIP for File Compression/Decompression (in ZIP and other
formats).

While they depend on an API that is closed source, they are not
interpreted. VBA is semi-interpeted p-code that depends not on an
API, but on running inside a particular closed-source executable.

Maybe the folks who do SourceForge aren't "true believers,"
though.

I think it's a big difference to them. If the PHP interpreter were
closed source, I doubt it would be widely used by the OS community.