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GPL Redistribution Clarification

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KongMD
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GPL Redistribution Clarification

Hi, all Smile I've made a portable app using the Launcher, and it's licensed under the GPL or LGPL. The exact wording is:

"It is free software (free of charge and free access to source code: GPL or LGPL licence)"

My main goal is to refine the application and make sure it's not fatally flawed, with the help of my fellow developers here, before telling the original application's developer about it. This is to avoid showing him an unfinished/bugged program and having him decide he doesn't want any redistribution.

Questions:

1) Can I legally post the first few builds here? The application is on SourceForge (open source).

2) Do I even need RegShot or other registry-monitoring utilities if I'm using the Launcher 2.0? It said in the description that it would handle registry entries.

3) Will you guys help me make sure there aren't registry entries or AppData being written to? The program doesn't make an AppData folder that I'm aware of, but you guys are the experts Smile

4) Do I need to include any kind of license.txt file or something since the original program is GPL?

Thanks a lot for your time, and I hope I can be of service to everyone in the future.

Chris Morgan
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Still needs configuration
  1. Yes.
  2. The PortableApps.com Launcher still requires configuration in the INI file to deal with registry files - it requires you to tell it what to do. Refer to the manual for details on that.
  3. Check it with RegShot - select "Scan directories" and put in "C:".
  4. The GPL is already included in the PortableApps.com Launcher app template, in Other\Source\license.txt. That's sufficient, really. Apps will normally come with the GPL in their app directory, anyway.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

KongMD
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If I understand the

If I understand the documentation correctly, I have to create an entry in the launcher.ini file for each registry entry? I was hoping to avoid that. It'll probably take me an hour just to figure out which ones to keep and which ones don't matter after wading through this regshot file...

John T. Haller
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We Can Help

If you post the regshot (within PRE tags please) we can probably assist. In general, you only need to worry about HKLM and HKCU as those are usually the only ones with changes directly from the app.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

KongMD
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Thanks for the offer! I think

Thanks for the offer! I think my main sense of confusion stems from these statements:

"A note on HKEY_USERS (HKU): programs like Regshot use the full path to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, which includes the user ID. This means that anything like HKU\S-?-?-??-?????????-?????????-?????????-???? (each ? is a number) should be used as HKCU. There is also HKU\.DEFAULT which is the same as far as portability is concerned."
-Portable Launcher 2.0 manual

"HKU: You can ignore these."
-Guerilla Field Guide original post

Anyway, here's the RegShot text:

EDIT: I think it's too long. Tried to post three times, but the Save button just brought me to a blank page
Benedikt93
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pastie/pastebin

Use either http://pastie.org/ or http://pastebin.com/ to upload the regshot and then put a link here.

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Chris Morgan
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Field guide inaccurate

On that point, the field guide is incorrect. In general I think you'll find the PortableApps.com Launcher manual is more accurate, mainly because in it I haven't had to try to squeeze everything into one or two screenfuls - so relevant content can be expanded easily.

HKU is HKEY_USERS, and the hive loaded at HKEY_USERS\S-... is what is then aliased as HKEY_CURRENT_USER (the S-... is the user account ID). If there's ever anything else in HKEY_USERS, in a different user hive, that indicates either that the app is doing scary stuff involving logging on other users or changing things it shouldn't, or if it's .DEFAULT that it's changing some things for when no-one's logged in - changing the colour and background in the logon screen, for example. I've never seen an app change anything but the current user's HKU\S-... thing.

The reason Regshot reports it that way, I think, is that it's the only "real" way of accessing it. HKEY_CURRENT_USER is purely an alias, and already covered by the HKU entry, so if it did that too it'd duplicate it.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

OliverK
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Its not inaccurate. It says

Its not inaccurate. It says that you can ignore some but not all of them.

And it gives you examples of each

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KongMD
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RegShot File

Here's the text of my RegShot file: http://pastebin.com/giJBTNbW

Chris Morgan
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Installer

Most of that can be ignored (bag stuff and a couple of MRU things). It's marked some pending file operations, meaning it will delete some files on exit. The file names and those sorts of things can be extracted from the hex code, but I can't be bothered checking what it is now and it doesn't really matter. Most of what matters will be from the installer and probably won't do anything with the app.

Specifically, the things which matter are these:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\MediaInfo.exe (key)
HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\B3\52C64B7E\@C:\Windows\System32\ieframe.dll,-914: "SVG Document"
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage\NewShortcuts\C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\MediaInfo\MediaInfo.lnk: 0x00000001
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Compatibility Assistant\Persisted\C:\Users\Matt\Downloads\MediaInfo_GUI_0.7.35_Windows_x64(2).exe: 0x00000001

The first key is probably (but possibly not) installer only. Taking a shot of the app itself running on a clean machine should tend to show you. The second has me puzzled. It doesn't seem to make much sense; I shall assume that the Windows Update I think you ran did it. The third item is to do with the shortcut, installer only, and fourth is a compatibility flag for the installer itself which shouldn't matter.

So I think you'll find the App Paths one is the only one you need to watch for. But I would recommend when taking shots that you try sans-installer if you can, or take one of the installer, then of the first app run; also running the app on a clean computer which has never had the app on it (virtual machines are helpful).

You can also take a look at MediaInfo Portable 0.7.6.2 (from March 2008) and see how Travis dealt with it in there.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

KongMD
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I'm a bit confused about

I'm a bit confused about where to go from here. I looked to some of my other portable apps for guidance with registry keys, but they were all built before launcher 2.0 and aren't in the same format. Also, that old build of MediaInfo portable doesn't have any registry keys in the .ini files that I can see.

So I need to be in App/AppInfo/Launcher/MediaInfoPortable.ini to edit the keys, right? There's so many .ini files that it's hard to keep them straight. To add the info about that App Paths key, do I just add

[RegistryKeys]
MediaInfo=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\MediaInfo.exe

to MediaInfoPortable.ini?

Also, I don't want to be disrespectful or anything, but why shouldn't I use Portable App Creator? I noticed that the dev included scripts to automatically generate the info about the registry keys and the like, and it looks much easier to use. The reason I didn't try it initially was because of the whole virus false positive thing, but that would be a relatively small hurdle compared to this method.

Chris Morgan
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Your RegistryKeys is correct.

Your RegistryKeys is correct. Make sure you set [Activate]:Registry=true if you do any registry stuff.

However, try it without it first: in all probability it's just the installer that did that and you won't need to do it for MediaInfo itself.

The old version of MediaInfo will have its launcher in Other\Source\MediaInfoPortable.nsi (or possibly Other\MediaInfoPortableSource\MediaInfoPortable.nsi). Skim through that, ignoring most of it, and you may get the general gist of what it does.

I'll deal with PAC later, as I need to go to Uni now. Sorry.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

Chris Morgan
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PAC/PAL

Now, to deal with your question about Portable App Creator versus the PortableApps.com Launcher.

On the negative side, Portable App Creator:

  • doesn't create apps in PortableApps.com Format (though it can be made to do so approximately);
  • takes control enough that it gives the impression it does everything with making a portable app, when it certainly doesn't;
  • is too simple in my opinion - making it so that anyone can "make a portable app" - of unknown and probably doubtful quality;
  • lacks any real level of configurability (if it doesn't quite work, you're completely sunk, I believe);
  • uses AutoIt (false positives, etc.);
  • is a dead project and so isn't supported any more.

However, it could be useful for making portable apps for private use when you don't really care whether it's strictly portable.

On the other hand, the PortableApps.com Launcher:

  • produces PortableApps.com Format apps (it forces you to in anything it touches);
  • gives the developer control to configure it as they wish;
  • makes understanding what's happening easy;
  • is extremely powerful;
  • is actively supported and developed.

However, it does require more work on the part of the developer, and doesn't guide you through the entire process (leaving other documents and its manual to do that).

One way I would summarise it is that PAC is for personal use by people who probably don't know what they're doing, PAL is more for general use, and in particular people who know what they're doing well and so can use its power. In particular for development at PortableApps.com, a tool like PAC just doesn't work in its current shape. (It could have portions of it rewritten to work with the PortableApps.com Launcher, probably fairly easily. Possibly worth some consideration as an option.)

For myself, as an experienced developer (we'll ignore the fact that I developed PAL), I think using the PortableApps.com Launcher is simple enough and powerful enough that I would use it rather than PAC. I would never redistribute anything done by a tool like PAC for the reasons stated earlier. And in general if I want to make a portable app of something, once I'm done I distribute it.

Some time ago I started work (currently busy with other things though) on a helper utility which will have some of the features of the Portable App Creator wizard, but it will be more geared towards our development process - the Format, Installer, etc.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

KongMD
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Thanks for the detailed

Thanks for the detailed reply! I'm glad you've been working a helper utility Smile Now that I am a bit more familiar with making portable apps, I may make one from an application that hasn't been made portable (on portableapps) yet. I don't think that I'll continue with the MediaInfo Portable I originally started work on, because it's not actively developed (and Travis already made a portableapps version).

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