Re: Windows?

[Francesco Potorti`]

>> >FOSS movement is known for consistently shooting itself in the foot.
>> 
>> While it does certainly makes sense to speak about "Free and Open
>> Source Software" (FOSS) when dealing with licence issues, it does
>> make a difference when speaking about aims and priorities.  If you
>> speak about free software, then your priority is freedom.  If you
>> speak about open source, then your priority is convenience.
>> 
>> I think that, while trying to interpret the GPL in the specific case
>> at hand, the maintainers simply chose to err on the side of freedom
>> rather than err on the side of convenience, at least until the legal
>> issue can be assessed with more certitude.
>> 
>> At least, this is how I read it, sorry if I misunderstood.
>
>And could you please elaborate on freedom in this context in layman terms ?

The reason why GPL programs cannot be linked with non-free programs is
to preserve freedom and diffuse it.  This aim is sometimes inconvenient.

To me, it looks like in this case it is not very clear whether and how
the MSVC libraries can be linked with Octave: maybe it is possible,
because the rules say that freedom is preserved to a satisfying extent,
maybe it is not, because the rules say that freedom is not preserved
enough.  Being on a boundary, the maintainers are trying to understand
what is the correct position.  In the meantime, one can err on the side
of freedom or else on the side of convenience, and they chose the first
option.

Again, this is how I see it, but I myself was not involved in this
decision in any way, so I may be wrong.

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