Software development kit
A software development kit ( SDK ) is a collection of programming tools and program libraries that is used to develop software. It supports software developers to create applications based on it. As a rule, there is a software development kit for every programming language, but for interpreted languages this can be identical to the runtime environment .
SDKs for operating systems play a special role. They contain the compilers , utilities, and information necessary to develop software for them. The basis for this is a so-called toolchain .
The software manufacturer can make the purchase of an SDK subject to compliance with certain rules, in particular the preservation of the confidentiality of certain information (English Non-Disclosure Agreement ). Often, however, the SDK is offered for free download on websites.
Some SDKs come with licenses that are designed to prevent software created with them from being released under another, incompatible license. For example, a proprietary SDK is not suitable for free software development , while an SDK licensed under the GPL is not suitable for proprietary software development. SDKs with the LGPL are usually safe for proprietary software development. Such license issues arose, for example, with Qt and resulted in a. in the development of the Gnome desktop environment as a replacement for KDE .
Some manufacturers use other names than SDK - e.g. B. the Java Development Kit JDK especially for the Java programming language.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heise News about licenses from Qt