[gnu.org #432927] Can a Windows installer include both VC++ libs and GPLed libs?

[David Bateman]

Brett Smith via RT wrote:
> I think the Windows binary distribution should simply provide users with
> instructions to obtain the libraries from Microsoft's site.  I realize
> that's inconvenient, but hopefully it's not too bad, and I think it's a
> worthwhile change to avoid any GPL trouble.
>   
Windows users need a lot of hand holding and asking this essentially 
means that no msvc build of octave can be distributed because we don't 
have the time to help them install the runtimes as well as Octave. 
Windows users expect to click on the download link, accept the license 
and have everything installed.. Anything else and their preception is 
the the software is crap regardless of any justification we can give 
them.. Better not to distribute msvc binaries of octave at all.

> If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me; I'll be
> on the lookout for those, and try to respond as quickly as possible.
>   
I'm not sure its possible in reality with msvc, but it certainly is 
theoretically, imagine I built a static version of octave with msvc... 
The runtimes are then statically built into the binary and no system 
libraries or bundling exceptions of the gpl are invoked.. This is 
essentially  the same binary that is distributed with a shared version 
of octave with the exception that the runtime is not distributed as a 
separate library.. I fail to see why this is allowed while a separate 
distribution isn't..

D.


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David Bateman                                dbateman at dbateman.org
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