git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: [RFC] Distributing Windows binary package compiled with non gpl code

From
Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
Date
Dec 27, 2007, 22:08 UTC
Message-ID
<alpine.LNX.1.00.0712271647130.13593@iabervon.org>
In-Reply-To
<e5bfff550712271032q25d135e7y47d68337e937d401@mail.gmail.com>
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007, Marco Costalba wrote:
> Packaged together with qgit.exe there are the necessary Micorsoft
> Visual C dll's. Is this a problem for someone?

It depends on how they're packaged together. If it's possible to unpack them (into a bunch of separate files, where each is either all GPL or no GPL), then this is "mere aggregation" and perfectly fine (assuming you're allowed to distribute the Visual C dlls, of course). IIRC, bundled libraries for Windows programs are stored on the user's disk as separate files anyway, so this is automatically okay.

I'd actually be more concerned about whether you can (or should) distribute GPL code compiled with a proprietary compiler; people who get the binaries and the source still couldn't edit the source and generate a corresponding binary, because they don't necessarily have the build environment you used. On the other hand, nothing you could do differently would be any better for anyone with the right to complain, so it shouldn't be an issue in practice. (And a user of qgit for Windows is more likely than usual to have MSVC anyway)

	-Daniel
*This .sig left intentionally blank*
Previous: Marco CostalbaNext: Abdelrazak Younes
Message 2 of 5 in “[RFC] Distributing Windows binary package compiled with non gpl code”
  1. Marco CostalbaDec 27, 2007
  2. Daniel BarkalowDec 27, 2007
  3. Abdelrazak YounesDec 27, 2007
  4. Daniel BarkalowDec 28, 2007
  5. Marco CostalbaDec 28, 2007

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.