A few Questions ...

[Peter Tanski]

On Nov 15, 2006, at 1:16 PM, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

> Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 9:08:16 AM, Peter Tanski wrote:
>
>>> 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.
>
> if this is true, this means a problem for existing GHC that creates
> mingw-compiled executables. but for ghc that will use MS libraries
> coming with CL, this is not a problem again - we can use
> mingw-compiled perl and other *tools* because this don't mean that
> resulting program will use mingw *libs*

There is actually a conflict here: the gcc distribution, at <http:// 
gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk/>, COPYING.LIB is the LGPL but the  
copyright referenced in the source code (from the main source  
distribution directory: gcc/libgcc2.h), at <http://gcc.gnu.org/svn/ 
gcc/trunk/gcc/libgcc2.h> is the GPL with a special exception for  
*any* linkage (dynamic or static).  I am not sure which license  
controls, so I tend to stick with the LGPL since it is effectively  
more restrictive.  The best way to resolve this would be to write the  
FSF.  I am going to do that right away.

Cheers,
Peter Tanski