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136 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
136 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type">
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<title>About Lazarus</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h3><br>
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<a href="MainPage.html">Back to the Main Page</a><br>
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<a href="SecondPage.html">Forward to the Second Page</a></h3>
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<h3> History
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</h3>
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<p> Lazarus was started in February of 1999. It was primarily
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founded by three individuals: </p>
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<ul>
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<li>Cliff Baeseman</li>
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<li>Shane Miller</li>
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<li>Michael A. Hess</li>
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</ul>
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All three had attempted to get involved with the Megido project which
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dissolved. In frustration they started the Lazarus project. It has had
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a steady growth of supporters and developers during the following
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years. Of the three founders, only Michael A. Hess is still involved
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with the project.<br>
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<br>
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The next oldest member of the team is Marc Weustink. He got involved
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with the project in Aug. 1999. Following him is Mattias Gaertner who
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got involved in Sept. 2000. Both of them have been the major
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contributors to the core of what makes Lazarus tick.
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<p></p>
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<h3> So just what is Lazarus?
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</h3>
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<p> Lazarus is the class libraries for Free Pascal that emulate
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Delphi. Free Pascal is a GPL'ed compiler that runs on Linux, Win32,
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OS/2, 68K and more. Free Pascal is designed to be able to understand
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and compile Delphi syntax, which is of course OOP. Lazarus is the part
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of the missing puzzle that will allow you to develop Delphi like
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programs in all of the above platforms. Unlike Java which strives to be
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a write once run anywhere, Lazarus and Free Pascal strives for write
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once compile anywhere. Since the exact same compiler is available on
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all of the above platforms it means you don't need to do any recoding
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to produce identical products for different platforms.
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</p>
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<h3> Yeah, but what about the GUI? What widget set are you using?
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</h3>
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<p> That is the neat part. You decide. Lazarus is being developed
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to be totally and completely API independent. Once you write your code
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you just link it against the API widget set of your choice. If you want
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to use GTK+, great! If you want it to be Gnome compliant, great! As
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long as the interface code for the widget set you want to use is
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available you can link to it. If it isn't available, well you can write
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it.
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</p>
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<p> For example. Let's say you are creating a product on Windows
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using the standard Windows widgets. Now you want to create a Linux
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version. First you decide what widget set you want to use. Let's assume
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you want to use gtk+. So you copy the code over to your Linux
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development machine, compile, and link against the gtk+ interface unit.
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That's it. You've now just created a Linux version of the Windows
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product without any additional coding.
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</p>
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<p> At this point in the development we are using gtk+ as our
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initial API widget set. Some work is also being done with Qt and the
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Win32 API. As soon as Lazarus reaches a 1.0 release developers will be
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able to start to create the interface unit to tie the LCL (Lazarus
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Component Libraries) to other widget sets.
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</p>
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<h3> So is this thing really RAD like Delphi?
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</h3>
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<p> It sure is. Is it totally completed? No not yet. The forms
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design portion is still in need of a great deal of development. The
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over all IDE is complete and can be used for most programming needs.
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Several aspects of the project are still in need of help. Hint. Hint. </p>
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<h3> Can I use my existing Delphi code?
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</h3>
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<p> Some of it yes. If the code is standard Delphi pascal and it
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uses the standard components found in Delphi then the answer is yes. If
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it uses some specific database, OCX, or DCU then the answer would be
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no. These items are specific to Windows and would only work on and
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within Windows. However, if you are only looking to create a Windows
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product using Free Pascal and Lazarus then the answer would be yes.
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This hasn't been added to the LCL yet but it should be possible in the
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future.
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</p>
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<h3> Can I create commercial products with this?
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</h3>
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<p> Yes. The code for the Free Pascal compiler is licensed under
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the GPL. This means that it is open source, free, whatever name you
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want to stick to it. You can modify the code if you wish but you MUST
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distribute those changes or make them available to others if they wish
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to use it.
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</p>
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<p> The FCL (Free Pascal Component Libraries) and the LCL (which
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will eventually become part of the FCL) are licensed under a modified
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LGPL. In a nut shell this means that you can write your own proprietary
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software that just links to these libraries. You can sell your
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application without the need to supply or make available your code.
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However, as with the compiler if you make modifications to the FCL or
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LCL you must make those changes available to the general public and the
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world.
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</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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