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Lazarus
IBExpert KG now offers professional support for Lazarus
We at IBExpert KG have been developing with Lazarus for a number of years now. All our own projects are developed using Lazarus and Firebird.
Lazarus is a free cross-platform IDE which provides a Delphi-like development experience for Pascal and Object Pascal developers. It is developed for, and supported by, the Free Pascal compiler. It supports the creation of self-standing graphical and console applications and runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX and Windows. Free Pascal is designed to be able to understand and compile Delphi syntax, which is of course OOP. Lazarus is the part of the missing puzzle that will allow you to develop Delphi-like programs in all of the above platforms. Since the exact same compiler is available on all of the above platforms it means you don't need to do any recoding to produce identical products for different platforms.
Open source
The code for the Free Pascal compiler is licensed under the GPL. This means that it is open source, free, whatever name you want to stick to it. You can modify the code if you wish but you MUST distribute those changes or make them available to others if they wish to use it.
The FCL (Free Pascal Component Libraries) and the LCL (which will eventually become part of the FCL) are licensed under a modified LGPL. In a nut shell this means that you can write your own proprietary software that just links to these libraries. You can sell your application without the need to supply or make available your code. However, as with the compiler if you make modifications to the FCL or LCL you must make those changes available to the general public and the world.
Cross-platform development
Lazarus uses Free Pascal as its back-end compiler. Therefore Lazarus can be used to develop applications for all platforms supported by Free Pascal.
Similar to Free Pascal’s run-time library, Lazarus provides a cross-platform application framework called the Lazarus Component Library (LCL), which provides a single, unified interface for programmers, with different platform-specific implementations. Using LCL, it is possible to create applications in a write once, compile anywhere manner, unless of course system-dependent features are explicitly used.
The standard application framework, Lazarus Component Library (LCL) was modeled after the Visual Component Library (VCL) in Delphi 6, but is available for operating systems other than Windows.
Native applications
The Free Pascal compiler generates executables which runs directly on your processor and operating system. There is no 'layer' in between the application and the system. This means that users do not have to install any frameworks on their computer to work with your application.
You can create any application you want. Lazarus contains libraries to create GUI applications. But there are also libraries for web-development, daemons/services and console-applications. You can even create a complete compiler or development studio using Lazarus and Free Pascal. After all, the Free Pascal and Lazarus projects themselves are completely written in Free Pascal.
Lazarus supports several databases including of course, Firebird and InterBase®. And there are packages enabling game development and web development.
IBExpert support, mentoring & outsourcing
We offer a range of support concepts, which can be found on our support pages. And if you cannot find the solution you are looking for, then please mail support@ibexpert.com with details of your requirements and we will send you a written offer.
Links & further information
Lazarus homepage Download Lazarus Lazarus FAQ pages Lazarus documentation Lazarus components and code examples Free Pascal homepage |
Who is using Lazarus?
Streamline and automate your company's processes and procedures with this sophisticated software: a complete business process-oriented ERP system, which allows you to bring all departments under one roof. BRP-Software was developed by Holger Klemt, using Lazarus and Firebird.
PeaZip is a free file and archive manager, based on solid and proven Open Source technology of 7-Zip for handling mainstream archive formats, and other great Open Source tools (like FreeARC, PAQ, UPX...) for supporting additional file formats and features, in order to provide an all purpose zip utility featuring a powerful unified GUI that, unlike most of other classic file archivers like i.e. WinZip and WinRar, is natively portable and cross-platform.
Features include antialiasing, multiple undo, alpha blending, BGRABitmap, selection of any shape, rotation, filters, update checker.
Key features include Unicode support, all operations work in the background, multi-rename tool, tabbed interface, custom columns, internal text editor with syntax highlighting, built-in file viewer to view files in hex, binary or text format, archives are handled like subdirectories. You can easily copy files to and from archives. Supported archive types: ZIP, TAR GZ, TGZ, LZMA and also BZ2, RPM, CPIO, DEB, RAR.
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