omniORB questions

[Sai-Lai Lo]

Thanks for your message.

>>>>> Lars Jarnbo Pedersen writes:

> I'm using omniORB to gain some insights on basic CORBA ORB
> infrastructure. After studying your very well structured and modular ORB
> architecture I'm considering using omniORB for some prototyping
> projects. But before I start my internal  "lobbying" I have a couple of 
> questions:

> 1) My understanding of the GNU General Public License vs GNU Library   
> General Public License in omniORB is that we can write CORBA programs   
> link it with omniORB.lib and sell it without having to make our source   
> available under GPL (because omniORB.lib is under the GNU library   
> license). However if we modify or extend the ORB core we have to provide   
> our source modification under GPL. Is this a correct understanding?

This is correct. 

> 2) On your web page and in your README files you claim that support for   
> Typecode, Any, DII and DSI will be included in a version to be released   
> shortly. Can you comment on the progress of this release?

Typecode and Any is being worked on right now. May be a couple of months
from a solid public release. We have not started on DII and DSI, it is not
a major piece of work once Typecode and Any are done.

> 3) The last question is a more technical one. You write that your next   
> release will include DII, but in your README files you also state that   
> you have no plan of supporting an Interface Repository. My understanding   
> of the CORBA specification is that the Interface Repository is needed to   
> discover the interface of an "unknown" object. What benefits do you see   
> by providing DII without an Interface Repository?

It depends on what one uses DII for. Even without IR, DII is useful to
program CORBA calls on the fly, e.g. in scripting languages, once the
interface to the object is known. In these applications, typically one has
to verify that the object one wants to communicate does support the
interface one has in mind. To do so, one does not need the IR. Instead, the
object can be contacted directly using the _is_a operation to obtain an
authoritative answer about the object's interface.

IMHO, interface browsing is one application that requires an IR. In our own
application domain, this is lower in priority than other features we have
to put in place.

Regards,

Sai-Lai Lo

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