Development of IQToolkit/IQDriver
Hi Joe,
Since there are a few problems with IQToolkit (or IQDriver), like the nullable FKs when updating/deleting, I was wondering if there is someone who actively develops these. This particular problem makes it impossible for me to use LINQPad to update data as a lot of the tables I use have nullable FKs (though it's not my design).
I tried to look into the matter but the assemblies you provide are strongly named and the IQDriver uses this. I checked and the codeplex project does not produce strongly named assemblies so someone else has built and signed them. Is there a way to try and fix the problem or all I/we can do is to wait for whoever maintains the toolkit/drivers to fix the underlying problem?
The toolkit itself should be open source, I don't see the point of strong naming the assemblies.
Since there are a few problems with IQToolkit (or IQDriver), like the nullable FKs when updating/deleting, I was wondering if there is someone who actively develops these. This particular problem makes it impossible for me to use LINQPad to update data as a lot of the tables I use have nullable FKs (though it's not my design).
I tried to look into the matter but the assemblies you provide are strongly named and the IQDriver uses this. I checked and the codeplex project does not produce strongly named assemblies so someone else has built and signed them. Is there a way to try and fix the problem or all I/we can do is to wait for whoever maintains the toolkit/drivers to fix the underlying problem?
The toolkit itself should be open source, I don't see the point of strong naming the assemblies.
Comments
The difficulty in publishing this as an open-source project is that it relies on commercial ADO.NET drivers (by DevArt) for MySQL and Oracle.
You might wonder why, in that the IQToolkit project released by MS uses a driver for MySQL which appears to be free. The problem is that's not really free - it's owned by Oracle and they require permission for its use unless the entire chain is open source. I managed to obtain that permission from Sun when they owned MySQL, but when Oracle it took over, they revoked that permission.
My workaround was to purchase a commercial license for DevArt's MySQL driver and modify IQToolkit to use this instead. (I don't know whether Oracle are happy about this, but it's perfectly legal - and reasonable.) I also bought a license for the DevArt Oracle driver because Oracle's version is bloated and requires installation.
I'm happy to make the source code public for my modified IQToolkit, including the Oracle formatter and the IQDriver itself. This will allow you to build your own version of the IQ driver. However, you will need to purchase commercial ADO.NET licenses from DevArt for MySQL/Oracle in order to build. These are not expensive - you're looking at around $150 each.
If you want to do this, let me know. I'm happy to integrate any enhancements/fixes that you make (and test) into the main driver.
Cheers
Joe
Sounds reasonable, but in this case I'll only commit myself to this when I'll have more than just occasional free time. So I'll get back to you on this (maybe next year?).
Cheers,
Gergely