[vlc-devel] [PATCH 05/12] Replace variable-length arrays by calls to alloca() for C90 compliance.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

On 01 Dec, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote :
> Le dimanche 1 décembre 2013, 18:37:57 Felix Paul Kühne a écrit :
> > On 01.12.2013, at 18:25, Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab.net> wrote:
> > > Even in the school case that there was an acceptable replacement,
> > > distributing (Lib)VLC binaries compiled with MSVC violates my copyrights
> > > so I could not care less about being compatible with it.
> > 
> > Could you elaborate on this stance?
> 
> No, I prefer to refrain from precise legal statements on records.
> 
> This topic has been discussed to death already anyway.

I don't understand your reasonning.

The FSF website says:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.en.html#WindowsRuntimeAndGPL

"The GPL permits this [dynamically linking my program with the Visual C++] because
that run-time library normally accompanies the compiler or interpreter you are using.
So it falls under the exception in GPL section 3."


And Brett confirms that the issue is only about the distribution of the
MSVCRT:
"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."
https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/pipermail/octave-maintainers/2009-May/015921.html

However, as MSVCRT is now part of Windows, and there is no need to
redistribute MSVCRT. This can clearly be confirmed by the fact that the
.appx packages for Windows Store do not ship any MSVCRT dll now.
And yes, this is a recent change.


As a side not, Visual Studio Express for C++ is now free (as in beer) and the
source code of the msvcrt is bundled and was used by Mozilla for example, with
the following conditions: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=731193#c0

With my kindest regards,

-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf
http://www.jbkempf.com/ - +33 672 704 734
Sent from my Electronic Device