Re: [Mingw-users] Windows x64 support in gcc

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

On 2007-3-30 23:45 UTC, Brian Dessent wrote:
> Greg Chicares wrote:
["redistributable" C rtl available gratis from ms]
>> Doesn't seem libre. I'd question whether this meets the
>> definition of "System Libraries" in the recent GPL
>> "Discussion Draft 3 of Version 3, 28 March 2007".
> 
> That of course is the important question, but I wouldn't use the v3
> wording to argue it, considering v3 hasn't yet been finalized and even
> if it does, the user can still choose to not use it and fall back to
> v2.

I'm not sure GPL version 2 would permit use of this download
(or, for that matter, any similarly-licensed download of the
32-bit rtl). The version 2 "special exception" applies to

  anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
  form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
  operating system on which the executable runs

I'd say MSVCRT.DLL is clearly okay for MinGW-built GPL apps
because that dll is "distributed with the kernel" in the
system directory of any 32-bit msw installation. One might
argue that msvc++ is a "major component" because it's the
OS vendor's compiler, but then there's the counterargument
that msvc++ is not "normally distributed" with the OS and
most msw users don't even have it.