Policy regarding DLL's on MT4

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Hi,

My broker recently contacted me to say that changes were happening to the MT4 platform that would prevent the use of DLL's and supplied a link to the article "3rd Party Developer Gets Red Card as MetaQuotes Re-Acts". Given the number of EA's that use DLL's, the broker was understandably concerned that many of their clients would be adversely affected. Reading through the article, it certainly appears that their concerns were well founded.

As a developer and trader I would like clarification of the proposed changes. I have recently spent a great many hours developing and testing an EA for supporting trade management. This EA uses 2 DLL's:

  1. A library containing a ticker routine. This is used to ensure that the user is able to smoothly interact with the system, even at times when there are very few price ticks coming through
  2. I use MQLLock for protecting and licensing my software. This is achieved by converting many of the EA routines to C++ and compiling them. These are then packaged up into a DLL along with license control routines.

Neither of these uses of DLL's fall into the category of "modifications" as defined in you license agreement.

If Metaquotes was to remove the ability to use DLL's, then clearly the affect on many MT4 developers would be enormous. I can understand your desire to prevent companies from producing 'hacked' versions of MT4, but simply preventing anyone from using DLL's on your platform would seem to be an extreme measure that stands to do far more harm than good. Clearly there are better ways to achieve your objective, for example digitally signing MT4's DLL's to prevent the running of modified versions.

My question for you is, given all of the above, is Metaquotes still determined to remove the ability to use DLL's? To put it another way, have I just wasted hundreds of development hours since I will no longer be able to offer a responsive and protected EA in the MT4 marketplace?

Dr Paul Anderson

 
As I understand it, the decision is designed toward your statement "I can understand your desire to prevent companies from producing 'hacked' versions of MT4". However, we're not Meta-Quotes here. Ask them directly https://www.metaquotes.net/en/company/contacts.
 
docit:


My question for you is, given all of the above, is Metaquotes still determined to remove the ability to use DLL's? To put it another way, have I just wasted hundreds of development hours since I will no longer be able to offer a responsive and protected EA in the MT4 marketplace?

Don't panic,  do some Google searching and get some information about the real situation.
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