Need alt Xerces-C (xml parser) lib binary for GPL compliance

[Matt]

Hello,

Summary:

Where can one download a Xerces-C (XML pardser) dynamic library file
(.DLL file) for Windows (Win98/WinNT/Win2k/WinXP/Win2003, including
server flavors; don't need to support pre-98) without having to build
the library from source?

We posed this question to the Xerces-users email list, but have yet to
hear back from anyone there.


Details:

I am helping produce a GPL (GNU's General Public License) -based
open-source project that depends on the Xerces-C XML parser module as
a dynamic/shared library. Unfortunately, Xerces-C's license (an
Apache license) makes it illegal for my project to provide the
Xerces-C software or binaries (including the library .dll binary)
available via our software distributions or websites in general.

Therefore, for our Windows distributions (either source or binary),
the user is forced to find Xerces-C on their own. This same issue
occurs for other systems, but it's not as big of an issue on these
other systems (namely Linux ones) because they tend to have an
automated means to acquire libraries and source headers (eg, apt-get
on Debian, yum/up2date on Redhat systems, etc).

The general procedure for our Windows users will be to download our
software (either in source or binary flavor), and then acquire
Xerces-C separately. Not as a big problem for those building from
source, but for those who don't want to build Xerces-C from source, it
sure would be nice if these users had a place to acquire a Xerces-C
pre-built binary (paritcularly for Xerces 2.7.0).

Fyi, we have the same issue with the OpenSSL libraries, but there
seems to be a well-reference site to get these OpenSSL binaries:

http://www.openssl.org/related/binaries.html
http://www.slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html

I'm looking for a similar thing (or better yet, multiple places) to
get Xerces-C Windows library binaries (again, preferrably for 2.7.0,
but 2.6.0 may suffice).

Thanks for any help,
-Matt

 

[Thota Umesh]

look here: http://www.dlldump.com/

 

[Matt]

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I strongly suspect you're misreading Apache's
license.

Well, we are told the GPL is not compatible with Apache, or so says
our legal representation as well as:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

However...

There really shouldn't be a problem with your making the DLL
available from your own website, as long as you do so under their
license (which should be easy; just make it a separate download from
your own code).

....maybe this doesn't preclude us from distributing the Xerces DLL
with a different license? Hmmmm....I'll have to check that out.
Thanks for the heads up.

The standard Xerces binary distribution is available direct from Apache
and their shadows, though I can't vouch for whether that's as a DLL or
in some other form. See http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/download.cgi

Somehow we overlooked this stuff, too. I do see a MSVC collection
there, now sure how well this is going to link with my mingw stuff.

I'll check out the distribution-under-Apache license first. Thanks
again.

-Matt