Re: [Mingw-users] licensing question

[Greg C. <chi...@co...>]

On 2005-07-08 22:44 PM, russ taylor wrote:
> 
> I am new to programming and do not understand the licensing issues.
> 
> I have read licensing related emails on the forum, yet I am not clear.
> 
> I have compiled a simple library written in c99 on msys using
> ./configure and make to create a .dll which I then use in MSVC.

Because you're new to programming, I'll assume you didn't write
this library that uses the gnu build system. If that's right,
then of course you need to examine that library's license.

> It uses the following header files. Am I using just the standard "mingw"
> run time libraries or is the GNU code infecting the resulting .dll?
[snip header list]

Probably you don't have a MinGW problem. Look for copyright
notices in any header you're concerned about, remembering that
some standard headers include others. But IIRC all the C99 and
posix headers are public domain.

It's not sufficient to know what headers you use. If you use
'gprof', the gnu profiler, then IIRC that creates a GPL issue.

I don't think MSYS itself can ever create any licensing issue
for a library you simply build with MSYS the way you describe.
(It doesn't sound like you're creating an MSYS-dependent dll.)

In general, as long as you steer clear of a few things like
gprof that are documented to raise GPL issues, then MinGW
raises no licensing issues. That's kind of its purpose.

Linking to an msvc program may infect other stuff with their
license. I don't really know--it's been years since I last
read their license, but I don't use their tools.

Of course, IANAL, and probably no one here is qualified to
give you legal advice. And no one who is qualified could give
a clean opinion based only on the facts presented here. Even
though the issues seem difficult, there's just no substitute
for understanding all the licenses involved. Yet I imagine
the biggest concerns will be with the msvc license and the
license of the library you build, not with MinGW or MSYS.