On 24 Jun 2004, at 07:15, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
Jack Jansen wrote:
That's indeed my understanding of The Plan today. More, we will not have a VC6 binary for Python 2.4. That may be controversial, but nobody has volunteered to produce an installer for a VC6 version. Does this mean that the final answer to the question of whether VC7 was GPL-compatible was "yes"?
I don't recall that the question has been asked before - let alone recalling an answer to it.
If you were wondering about the question "is it possible to build extension modules for a VC7 compiled Python without having to buy VC7", then this question would have nothing to do with legal issues, but much more with technical ones.
The question I mean is that the GPL says "You shall not link against commercial libraries, unless they are part of the base OS". The second part of that sentence could be considered true for the VC6 version of MSVCRT, but not for the VC7 one. Actually, Microsoft strongly suggest you ship msvcr71.dll (or whatever the name) with the application, and not put it into /System. That appears to me to be a definite no-no for GPL software. -- Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma Goldman