Re: Windows?

[Sergei Steshenko]

--- On Wed, 5/13/09, Przemek Klosowski <address@hidden> wrote:

> From: Przemek Klosowski <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Windows?
> To: address@hidden, address@hidden
> Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 10:59 AM
> 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.
>   
> 

I have read the GPL FAQ, and I have posted the important for me part in
this this.

The _main_ points are:

1) GPL does _not_ require anyone to ship/distribute complete/working
product, so, say, 'octave' _can_ be shipped without libraries it needs;

2) the GPL FAQ _explicitly_ allows to combine GPL code with incompatible
with GPL _in_ _house_. And, IIRC, the companies are even allowed to 
redistribute such code across the company sites (but not outside the
company) in binary form;

3) if 'octave' is built to work with MSVC libraries, and is _not_ 
statically linked, then it is _not_ built only for MSVC libraries, it
is built for any _compatible_ libraries, so there is _no_ aggregation.

That's why I'm talking about static vs dynamic linking - dynamic linking
ensures the GPL code is _separable_ from GPL-incompatible code.

Regards,
  Sergei.