Native Development

[rcmaniac25]

Fianlly got around to this point.

Bing for BlackBerry is an open-source project that incorporates the entire Bing 2.2 SDK.

This is a port of my already existing Java library of the same name, but for the NDK.

Some notes on this release:

• Testing has been done almost entirely on a PlayBook running OS 2.0.1. No testing has been done on BlackBerry 10.
• There have been occasions where a search fails due to some component not being allocated. It is not known at this time why the allocations fail as the tests have been run without any other applications open.
• This version lacks international char. support. As such, only ASCII chars. should be used for now.

Link: http://bbing.codeplex.com/

I hope this becomes useful for someone, enjoy.

[epelegrillopart]

Very good!  want to talk more about it?

I'm not familiar at all with CodePlex.  Do you have to use MS's license?  I don't know much about it, but, according to Wikipedia, it is not compatible with GPL (I presume all versions of GPL) and we do have some projects that are (L)GPLv2(.1)

[rcmaniac25]

Sure, though I'm not sure what to talk about.

I'm working on adding international character support, and fixing an odd bug where malloc decides to stop working when this is the only app open. I also am working on a sample app which is identical to the Java version, as well as documentation. Finally I plan on making a C++ wrapper for it, bringing it full circle from it's origin.

CodePlex is just another code repository.

The MS license has to do with it's origin. It started out as a port of ibing to BlackBerry Java. ibing used the MS license, so I brought it over too. Now I've rewrote it in C, and later C++. I'm no expert on licenses and only have what is available online, so I don't know if I can change the license on it. If I had a choice, I would go with MIT. But I have no real idea on what it takes to change between incompatible licenses.

If you have any insight into licenses, I would be more then willing to figure it out and change it (changing the one for BlackBerry Java too).

[epelegrillopart]

re: what to talk about -- Mostly giving you more visibility

re: MS-PL -- the incompatibility with GPL may be an issue in some cases, but not in others.  This is the first MS-PL project I have encountered, which may be more a reflection of the areas I move on than anything else.

re: changing licenses -- if you own all the IP you can normally change / add licenses.  Dual-licenses allow the licensee to choose what license to use for a particular component.

I'm not familiar with the details of your componentn, so I don't konw if you own the IP, or whether you depend on other IP that would make it hard to change licenses. 

[rcmaniac25]

re: More visibility-I know it is somewhat BlackBerry specific as a couple APIs aren't avaliable on other platforms, so besides this forum and Twitter, I'm not sure where I would advertise it.

Even then, I have the slight issue of project stability (not the code itself) as the actual webservice that it interfaces with is planning on doing a major change, and advertising something that could change keys and pricing anywhere between now and a year+ from now, is not something that helps a project.

re: MS-PL-Know what you mean. Besides this project, and the ibing project I mentioned in my previous post. I don't know of any.

re: Changing licenses-That there is the problem. I don't own the IP, and as it started as a port of ibing, which is written by a Bing API developer at Microsoft and uses MS-PL, I don't think I can change / add to it.

By the way, I just realized that I had asked you on Twitter about the international character support, this is the project I am working on that I want to add the feature to. As the BlackBerry Java version already has support for it.

[epelegrillopart]

re: help with libcurl - Yep, I noticed that. Hope it helped.

re: where to advertise - there is the Open Source blog, and the Community WIki, for example.

re: not stable/others - If you feel it is not ready for extra customers, we can wait and reopen the thread when/if you feel it is ready.

re: licenses and not owning the IP - correct.  If it is not yours, (or if you don't have a contribution agreement that gives you a license to it), you can't change the license.

[rcmaniac25]

re: libcurl-I'm reviewing my code right now. I use libcurl and libxml2. I know the XML I receive is UTF8 encoded, so I need to review my code to see if there is anything special I need to do to handle that and I need to look for any areas where I might check values. Instead of simply going off the key value which is always ASCII. The URL itself I seem to have (haven't replied on Twitter yet).

re: advertise-Good point, need to check out community wiki.

re: stable-I put a large notice on the front page of the project page explaining the issue. It shouldn't be an issue, but for many indie devs, saying you have to spend time and effort to make a program that uses a library is one thing. Telling them they need to rewrite/modify it because the library changed is another. Throwing on top of that, that they might need to pay can be the different between use and disuse (though paying still isn't finalized).

My plan is to do it transparently within the library, but I need actual information out of Microsoft first.

re: licenses-Yea, so I'm a little stuck on the license.

[epelegrillopart]

Look into the Wiki. It is community contributed, so we will depend on people like you contributing useful information. We will hjave a group moderating and we will need to figure how to tag entries with different properties...

We are just starting it, so a lot of it is still quite fluid.

[rcmaniac25]

Community projects/libraries?

[epelegrillopart]

Yep. A related Q is how to give an indication to the potential user of how solid the library is. In general, though, my approach is to try to collect the data first and then mold it into the most useful arrangement. W/o content there is nothing we can mold .