Re: Windows?

[Przemek Klosowski]

Sergei,

   So, where is the GPL violation if 'octave'/'inkscape' are _not_ statically
   linked with MSVC libraries ?

Essentially, it doesn't matter whether linking is static or dynamic,
and in any case FSF seems to argue that static linking is more
acceptable if it's a part of the platform-specific compile/load
operation. The FSF does a good job clarifying the issues in
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.htm 

Here's their argument (as far as I understand it) broken down into
logical steps, so that if you disagree with the final conclusion you
should be able to point out which statements you disagree with.

- when Free software components are combined with non-Free components,
  the result is less Free, therefore Free software needs protection
  against being combined with non-free software

- it is impossible to entirely avoid such combination, because Free software
  requires non-Free runtime/OS libraries in non-Free environments

- therefore, the System Library exception is granted, to the extent
  that the non-Free system libraries provide standard runtime
  facilities that are also provided on Free systems.

- it is possible to abuse the System Library exception by expanding the
  scope of such libraries, so FSF maintains strict restrictions, e.g. 
  requiring that such libraries are directly distributed with the OS.

- unfortunately, this affects the MSVC libraries, because Microsoft
  chose to not distribute those essential libraries with Windows.
  
I think this discussion became repetitive, so I will leave it at this.
As I mentioned earlier, I think FSF should carve a specific exception 
for MSVC libraries, under these circumstances, but so far that didn't
happen.