Tiny_tds fat binary gem (mingw-x64/ Windows) dependency questions

[senolfeldmann]

I have a question about tiny_tds. Does anyone know if the the various .exe binaries which are shipped in the fat binary gem version (mingw-x64 / CRuby on Windows) of tiny_tds are really needed for tiny_tds to be able to operate? My takeaway from reading the various rake files is that only some libs are needed.
For me, iconv.exe in C:\Ruby27-x64\lib\ruby\gems\2.7.0\gems\tiny_tds-2.1.5-x64-mingw32\ports\x86_64-w64-mingw32\libiconv\1.15\bin is especially important, as it is licensed under GPL and I want to use activerecord-sqlserver-adapter (and thus tiny_tds as it is a dependency) commercially.

And what about the .exe binaries of freetds: bsqldb.exe, datacopy.exe, defncopy.exe, freebcp.exe, tdspool.exe and tsql.exe, are they needed or can I delete them from my system?

[andyundso]

Does anyone know if the the various .exe binaries which are shipped in the fat binary gem version (mingw-x64 / CRuby on Windows) of tiny_tds are really needed for tiny_tds to be able to operate?

No, these are needed to operate. However, if you report an issue, it is helpful for us if you run the tsql utility to give us more details about your environment.

For me, iconv.exe in C:\Ruby27-x64\lib\ruby\gems\2.7.0\gems\tiny_tds-2.1.5-x64-mingw32\ports\x86_64-w64-mingw32\libiconv\1.15\bin is especially important, as it is licensed under GPL and I want to use activerecord-sqlserver-adapter (and thus tiny_tds as it is a dependency) commercially.

FreeTDS is also distributed under the GPL license.

I am no expert on licensing. I think you are good if you would provide your software as a SaaS. If you plan to distribute your software alongside a copy of tiny_tds, then I think you would have to license your code as GPL as well.

In theory, we do not have to use libiconv for FreeTDS. It would then fallback to its own iconv-like implementation, but again, it does not matter since FreeTDS is also licensed as GPL.