[Spread-users] Some basic questions

[John Lane Schultz]

Bus Mini wrote:
> Schultz:
>  
> Thanks for your hlep, I can get a clear understanding now. But before I 
> can use Spread, I still have a question. It seems very complcated to 
> configue spread, if I developed an application with Spread in my 
> computer, and it works well because I know how to install and configue 
> Spreadm in my computer. But it may cause some problem if the user of my 
> application is someone who have no konwleage about  computer. How can I 
> make sure other user can use my application without understanding 
> Spread? I mean is there an easy way for me to release my application 
> then all the users have to do is just runing my application without 
> install Spread(to me Spread works much more like a program than a lib ).
>  
> Thanks for reading my e-mail. Your help is very important to me.
> 
> -- 
> Yours sincerely
> Mini Bus.

You could of course have your software bundle Spread with it and install Spread 
automatically.  Then for configuration you could provide some nice GUI that 
generates the spread.conf file appropriately.  When you start/end your 
application it can launch/kill Spread.

Alternatively, you could try and run Spread in process with your application.  I 
know some people on this list have tried to change Spread so that rather than 
having a main() function it instead has a thread entry function and the compile 
the Spread code into their application's executable.  Then your application 
spawns a thread that runs the thread entry function (i.e. - the renamed main() 
fcn).  I haven't tried that but it seems like it could work and this is 
basically running Spread as a library.

You would still need, however, to configure Spread.  There isn't really a good 
way around getting all the appropriate IPs that I can see.  You could make a 
nice interface to the conf file rather than editing a text file, but that is 
about it.

If you distribute your application that uses Spread, then remember that you have 
to comply with Spread's Open Source license ( 
http://www.spread.org/license/license.html ), which requires that:

'3. All advertising materials (including web pages) mentioning features or use 
of this software, or software that uses this software, must display the 
following acknowledgment: "This product uses software developed by Spread 
Concepts LLC for use in the Spread toolkit. For more information about Spread 
see http://www.spread.org"'

Good luck!

-- 
John Schultz
Spread Concepts LLC
Phn: 443 838 2200
Fax: 301 560 8875