in reply to What is the big deal about PAR?

PAR's great for distributing perl scripts along with their dependencies. For example, the milkbone AIM client (http://milkbone.org) uses plugins that are distributed as PAR files. A single PAR file includes all of the plugin's code and all of the modules it might need.

Also, as another poster mentioned, PAR is an open-source replacement for PerlApp and Perl2Exe (which weren't that great to begin with).

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Re: Re: What is the big deal about PAR?
by Chokma (Acolyte) on Mar 16, 2003 at 20:49 UTC
    I ran into a problem about the "open-sourcesness" of PAR based solutions.

    PAR uses searches for and includes perl*.dll on Windows. But if I use ActivestatePerl, I would be using PAR to redistribute their dll, something which I am quite sure AS-Software does not like.

    Sadly, I could find no 'working' Perl binary for Windows which offers the same ease of use as AS-Perl (PPM!). The problem comes down to this: other Perl distributions make it very difficult to install CPAN-Modules as most modules expect a working C-enviroment...

    *sigh* when will Perl Modules be self-sufficient enough to ignore C and make?

[reply]
      ActivePerl is open source perl, and as such, you can redistribute it any way you see fit, almost all dll's included (i say almost cause there may exist some modules which aren't released under the L?GPL, but I don't know of any). If that wasn't true, it'd be illegal for people to host PPM repositories. All that is under the L?GPL can be distributed this way.

      MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!
      I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests.
      ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

[reply]
        No, that is not true. ActivePerl is distributed under the ActiveState Community License, not under the L?GPL. It only contains software beyond the core Perl distribution that is either also licensed under the Artistic license or has been developed by ActiveState.

        I don't think there is any problem hosting PPM repositories as long as source code for the modules is available as well, even if the modules are under L?GPL.

        However, as an end-user you must not use modules that are purely under L?GPL in your binary PerlApp/Perl2exe/PAR distribution unless you make the source available too.

[reply]

      The DLL may be marked as being redistributable. Someone with AS perl handy might want to check that (or I will later when I get back the AS perl machine).

      Seeking Green geeks in Minnesota

[reply]
        No, it is not marked as redistributable. However, since the source code to the DLL is available under the same terms as Perl, you could technically build an identical version yourself that would be redistributable.

        One reason it is not marked as redistributable is because it claims to be 

            Binary build XXX provided by ActiveState Corp. http://www.ActiveSt
+ate.com

        [download]

        We kind of expect people who build their own Perl from the sources to change this string (and not call it ActivePerl). :) The reason is that people come to ActiveState support when they run into problems with ActivePerl, and this is not desireable when the program hasn't even been distributed by ActiveState. It is expensive enough to provide (limited) free tech support for a product that is also provided for free.

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