License

[Greedquest]

@waynephillipsEA

Not sure best place to ask. I was inspired to write this package based on some code I found in RubberDuck which I understand you are the original contributor of.

In RD that code is implicitly GPLv3, because of dependencies elsewhere in the project that propagate the license. That license would maybe then apply here too - it's a bit of a grey area translating code or even rewriting from scratch based on the algorithm derived from an implementation which is what I've done here. However GPL is not appropriate for this standalone library I don't think, it is too restrictive on people wanting to use it in a closed source setting.

As I believe you hold the copyright to the original contribution I would be satisfied with your say whether you are happy for me to use a more permissive license than GPL? Have asked on the RD chat as well and nobody minds much:) Probably I'll just revert to MIT? Mozilla Public License 2.0 also sounds reasonable as it promotes open source a bit more than MIT, but less restrictive than GPL.

[WaynePhillipsEA]

Sure, no problem at all from my point of view. Please feel free to use whatever licence fits best.

[joyfullservice]

Thanks, @Greedquest! I was excited about this project, but concerned about whether I would be able to use it based on the license. Thanks for making the effort to move this back to MIT. 👍

[Greedquest]

@joyfullservice Glad to hear it and thanks for letting me know, it's great and motivating to hear someone may benefit from the work (this was not an easy project!). What usage did you have in mind by the way, if I can ask? Did you hear about it through Mike's blog.

[joyfullservice]

@Greedquest - I have done some extensive development work on a msaccess-vcs-integration add-in for Microsoft Access that allows you to export a database into source files for use in version control, and also build the database from the source files. Essentially, it was for me the missing link to effective version control based development in Microsoft Access. Last year I successfully integrated a twinBASIC toolbar into the add-in, providing a big boost in usability.

But a specific roadblock I wasn't able to get around was connected with Microsoft Access ADP databases. (An older technology removed after Access 2010) Where I work we still use a very complex ADP project in production, so I was wanting the VCS toolbar to work on that database as well. I could activate the add-in from the built-in add-ins menu, but not from the TB ribbon. While I could work around this with a regular Access database, I couldn't on an ADP project.

This is what peaked my interest with your project. I have done a fair bit with cross-application automation in VBA over the past couple decades, and being able to effectively invoke code in an external project was a key issue. Thankfully the Application.Run concept usually did the trick, but there were those edge cases that required a bit more creativity.

I also have aspirations of building out an automated build runner application for Microsoft Access where a commit to VCS could automatically trigger a build of the database from source files, followed by a self-test procedure, then move to an automatic deployment process that pushes it out to the end users. Essentially it would bring to Microsoft Access a fully automated CI/CD workflow.

I think I first stumbled across your work on Code Review (https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/274532) while I was doing some follow-up research after my own question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62270088/how-can-i-launch-an-access-add-in-not-com-add-in-from-vba-code.

Most recently I did see the mention of your project in Mike's blog. I was rejoicing with you on the success of getting this to work. It is a great feeling to reach success after spending so many hours working through uncharted waters. 😄