> Or does it mean that the patches you need for the external h323 plugin to
> work will be included in the ethereal distro?
This is what I meant.
> Not a flame, just curiosity since it was before my time but
> Exactly what is the problem with the licence for folding the h323 into
> mainstream ethereal?
The source is Mozilla Public License, so we'd need the "ask all developers
if it's alright to (dynamically) link to non-GPL source" action I think.
I am now I think slightly over the "this is allowed by the GPL" line, but
once I can only distribute the plugin I might be OK. I really don't know.
> Are the licence-incompatible modules very large so it wouldnt be realistic
> to reimplement them as GPL?
Yes, think files of 500kb running up to 1.5 mb... They are generated by an
MPL licensed ASN.1 compiler and using a MPL licensed ASN.1 encoding/decoding
library.
> Not that I have time to even look at it, I too busy implementing nt dcerpc
> services as it is, but
> would it be possible, and how much work would it be?
>From what I have heard, the ASN.1 compiler and library took a couple of
months of full time development by a couple of guys... ASN.1 compilers
and libraries are evil ;-)
I have patched the compiler so you can feed it an ASN.1 file and it will
create a dissector for you (well, more or less).
> (if, no committment, i would get time in an unknown distant future, and not
> know what to do, and not have anything more important to do, how much work
> would it be to recode the non-GPL parts from scratch?
See above, ASN.1 is nice to use, but evil to write a library and compiler for.
Remember, the ASN.1 functionality in Ethereal is BER which is the simple
variant, H.323 is PER and that is evil. I have seen people decode it by hand
and every bit and byte take at least 15 minutes to reason why it's there and
if it should be there. No fun at all.
If you need a hobby, have access to ITU-T X.680 and further, have a company
paying you to do this and you have knowledge in creating compilers, then by
all means do so!
Copying the exisiting functionality in the compiler and adding functionality to create Ethereal code took
me approximately 4 months to make it work (including investigation, implementing RTP/RTCP/H.261).
But I did get a very good grade when I handed in my report at the "university" to get my diploma ;-)
--
Andreas Sikkema
andreas.sikkema@xxxxxxxxxxx
"While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you.
It's a Spanish story about a guy named `Manual'" - Dilbert