A few Questions ...

[Peter Tanski]

Hello Bulat,

On Nov 14, 2006, at 5:41 AM, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 2:30:50 AM, you wrote:
>
>> I guess I am trying to sort out the goals for the task and I tend
>> toward the relatively aesthetic option of creating a stand-alone GHC
>> compiler running on Windows (i.e., no extra tools shipped).  In
>> addition to being aesthetic, mingw is GPL-licensed.
>
> this is again more aesthetic than real problem - code compiled by
> GPL'ed tools is not GPL'ed

True.  I should add a few notes: I did not mean to imply that merely  
distributing mingw with GHC in the same package would create a  
licensing problem; I also think I overstated it a bit: mingw is  
public domain but mingw development tools are GPL--o.k. to use, of  
course--but the libraries (libgcc, libgcov) are LGPL, so static  
linkage to the libraries makes the resulting code LGPL.  (The MinGW  
site explicitly warns that using the MinGW profiling library, which  
is GPL, makes the resulting code GPL.)  If I recall correctly, the  
gcc libraries used to be GPL'd with a runtime exception that was more  
permissive than the LGPL, i.e., it allowed static linkage.  Cygwin  
also provides a special exception as a "Note" for linking to the  
cygwin library (static or dynamic) but would run into the same  
problem for the LGPL'd libraries.  This is not a big issue but it is  
another thing to think about when you are putting a whole program  
together so I accord it more deference than an aesthetic consideration.

Cheers,
Pete