From: J D. <d3...@gm...> - 2010-11-21 00:23:15
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On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 8:12 AM, Charles Wilson <cwi...@us...> wrote: > On 11/20/2010 4:04 AM, J Decker wrote: >> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Charles Wilson wrote: >>> Well, see, that's the problem. There are actually two questions: >>> >>> #1 are we (mingw.org) satisfied with what *I* have been told about the >>> development process of mingw64? *IF* what I have been told is true -- >>> in each and every instance, not just 'most' or 'often' or 'nominally but >>> exceptions abound' (and we have to take their word for it; it's not like >>> we have any third-party inspector saying "Yep, mingw64 is actually doing >>> what they told Chuck they are doing") -- then it would probably be ok, >>> subject to licensing concerns. But that's quite a big "if". >> >> And the harm from accepting arbitrary patches? the function doesn't >> actually exist in the windows system? You're just providing a linkage >> (a function definition and a way to register the correct names in a >> DLL). It's not like you're providing the documentation and have to >> worry about what? plagiarism? > > Exactly. Another word for "plagiarism" (without due consideration of > licensing issues, such as EULAs, restrictions on reverse engineering, > and re-distribution rules) is "copyright infringement", which subjects > us to legal liability. Worse, however, is that it could put our *users* > in danger. Okay so I downloaded, installed the latest sdk and stopped to read the EULA. I'm not sure any sort of reverse engineering science is needed to read header files. The libray format (COFF) is publicly available for people to be able to consume them without having to reverse engineer them. "You may not · work around any technical limitations in the software;" I find this humerous for numerous reasons :) But in the docs - you can make as many copies as you want, you can even post and distrubute them with or independantly of the program using the redist parts... you just can never charge or modify the original; nor can you change the copyright information on this... (so? who'd want to? it's microsofts, no use in claiming it's mine) There is no clause about 'do not plagiarize' . This is the first clause . INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. a. Installation and Use. You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices to design, develop and test your programs that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system. Further, you may install, use and/or deploy via a network management system or as part of a desktop image, any number of copies of the software on computer devices within your internal corporate network to design, develop and test your programs that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system. Each copy must be complete, including all copyright and trademark notices. You must require end users to agree to the terms that protect the software as much as these License terms. You're actuall not in compliance by not maintaining a fully compliant copy. YOu're not supposed to distribute copies of this information that are not complete in their entirety. > > Suppose we "copied" some code that is GPL into the mingw runtime > library, but didn't tell anybody, or didn't notice, or didn't care. Our > users might then compile highly valuable proprietary programs using our > compiler -- and then sell their products to somebody else. Then, > suppose that somebody else looked at the mingw.org runtime code, and > discovered the "GPL" inclusion. > > They could then plausibly assert that (a) the mingw runtime code is > actually GPL, since it "plagiarized" code that was originally GPL. > Because of the viral nature of the GPL, they could then assert that (b) > any program linked using mingw was ALSO GPL -- and then go to our user > and demand the source code of their proprietary product. And a court > would most likely agree...if mingw.org's infringement was a blatant case > of negligence or deliberate offense, and our user's due diligence ought > to have detected. > > For instance, if somebody said on our mailing lists that we shouldn't > worry about "plagiarism" and nobody contradicted them... > > So, yes, we DO have to be VERY careful about licensing issues. > > A similar argument could be made with respect to MS's EULA and reverse > engineering prohibitions, but at least those wouldn't be "viral"; our > users wouldn't be affected. Just us. Personally. By being sued. > Personally. By a team of microsoft lawyers with a practically unlimited > budget. > > No thanks. > >> EIther the interface works or it >> doesn't... Someone's gonna submit arbitrarily wrong function >> definitions just for the hell of it? I dunno maybe I'm just distrubed >> by a 'we' and 'they' attitude... such animosity over... supporting >> definitions for linking to code that isn't even yours? > > No, it's not "animosity" -- although in the past there was some of that > between the two forks. Right now we are all just kinda slowly feeling > our way back to a rapproachment (but not a merger, for some pretty > decent technical reasons). > > However, I'm going to make a radical suggestion: PROVIDED mingw.org can > convince themselves of the "goodness" of mingw64's stuff (technically, > legally, license-wise, etc etc etc, according to the standards of our > project)...I assert that if we EVER get to the point that we would > accept patches derived from mingw64's runtime and headers: > > Then we should work with cygwin to drop w32api and mingwrt completely -- > even removing them from the src repo -- and adopt mingw64's runtime and > headers wholesale. They are just that much more complete than ours. > > There'd still be many reasons for mingw.org's compiler to exist apart > from mingw64 for certain other technical reasons (mingw64 uses sjlj > which IMO means their java is basically unusably slow; mingw.org uses > the much faster dw2: this ABI difference is reason enough on its own). > > -- > Chuck > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports > standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1, ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3. > Spend less time writing and rewriting code and more time creating great > experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today > http://p.sf.net/sfu/msIE9-sfdev2dev > _______________________________________________ > MinGW-users mailing list > Min...@li... > > This list observes the Etiquette found at > http://www.mingw.org/Mailing_Lists. > We ask that you be polite and do the same. 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