DCE 1.2.2 released under LGPL license (strategically important for Wine)

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 09:03:13AM -0800, Steven Edwards wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> --- Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:
> > DCOM applications can be made to WORK under Wine using FreeDCE, Samba or
> > Samba TNG with NamedPipes.
> > 
> > unmodified Win32 applications can do DCE/RPC and DCOM utilising FreeDCE
> > and Samba, with a minimum of development effort inside Wine and Samba.
> 
> I was under the impression quite a bit of work would still be needed to make
> it binary compatible. 
 
 if it is, then FreeDCE is the gateway that provides a really large
 chunk of the missing functionality.

 DCOM has already been added to FreeDCE: the IDL files (from which
 the header files are auto-generated) are all there.

 ... lessavalook, make sure i'm not talking rubbish.  just
 looking closely at the code, here: freedce/dcom/dcom.h says:

	/* 
	 * API Definitions for DCOM, part of the FreeDCE & DCOM package.
	 * This file borrows from objbase.h, part of the Windows Includes,
	 * Copyright Microsoft Corporation.
	 * */

 hm.
 
 does anyone know how to replace this file with a free software
 alternative?  surely you have deployed techniques to provide full
 header-file interoperability?

 is there anyone prepared to advise / do same here?

 also, the samba team are also implementing DCOM support:
 they are paid to do work on samba and so may have some of
 the key components (e.g. a header file as above!), albeit they
 are working in an incompatible framework.
 
 they have chosen to reimplement what FreeDCE provides, rather
 than adapt it, as they have chosen to reimplement kerberos
 and ldap, rather than adapt to and extend those projects.

 i understand their logic and reasoning behind choosing to
 not use FreeDCE [you must use the FreeDCE POSIX draft 4 threading
 library], but i find ... never mind, it's a story for
 another day.  anyway.

 FreeDCE's IDL compiler has been extended to provide full MSRPC
 interoperability: UCS-2 unicode string support and some complex
 expressions for transferring data over-wire.
 
 it is a mature project that needs little adaptation and
 extension: samba's idl compiler is very very basic, and the
 framework being developed is very immature, still in flux,
 and places a large burden of effort on the developer.

 FreeDCE's IDL compiler is IDL-compatible and
 framework-compatible with the MSRPC IDL compiler.

 the choice is yours.

 l.