The Interoperability SIG met from 9 am till 10 am European Central Time.
Agenda
Versioning of documents, documentation sets, IDL, type libraries, etc…
Participants
Malcolm WOODMAN, Michael HALLORAN (contractor to CO-LaN), Michel PONS (contractor to CO-LaN / CTO)
Highlights
On technical issues related to versioning, M. HALLORAN reports that the CAPE-OPEN Type Library (TLB) can be included in the Primary Interop Assembly (PIA) as a resource (the PIA is delivered as a versioned DLL). M. HALLORAN has some more work/tests to perform especially with respect to companion files and to the side effects of renaming the TLB to include a 3rd digit version number. M. HALLORAN is targeting next joint Interop SIG / M&T SIG meeting on November 26 to present results.
Communication on the need to use the PIA distributed by CO-LaN: following a recent interoperability issue resulting from a software vendor developing its own PIA out of the CAPE-OPEN TLB instead of using the PIA distributed by CO-LaN, the Interop SIG has been looking into ways to improve the access to TLB/PIA installers while navigating the website. The developers at the above mentioned software vendor had pointed to a lack of information from CO-LaN as a reason for the wrong steps taken. As a first action by M. PONS, TLB/PIA are now listed in the “General documents” of the specification page.
During the meeting, additional modifications have been suggested especially to the pages dedicated to version 1.0 and version 1.1 of the CAPE-OPEN standard.
Regarding a deployment enhancement requested by one software vendor making use of the TLB/PIA installers provided by CO-LaN (vendors need to be able to deliver the 32-bit type library installer within their own 64-bit product installers), M. HALLORAN will investigate the option to use separate names for the 32-bit and 64-bit PIAs. The WiX installation package project may need to be restructured to allow separate names.
Another deployment issue raised by a software vendor is the license used for the installers and its contents. Should any use of the merge modules in an installation package be considered derivative work? Should any development built upon the CAPE-OPEN TLB/PIA be considered as derivative work? This needs to be settled through external legal advice to be initiated by M. PONS and input from software vendors.
Next meeting is scheduled for December 20, 2018.
