Neil Mitchell wrote:
Hi
> I'm not sure I understand this. MS tools are free to download
> by anyone, but not redistributable. The binaries needed by
> programs *built* by those tools are not only free to download,
> they're free to redistribute, and they're less encumbered than
> almost all so-called 'free software' products.
"The binaries needed by programs built by these tools...", you're
referring to
the C runtime DLLs? Why does that matter?
Note I said "with no dependencies" above. A Windows native port of
GHC would
require you to go to MS and download the assembler and linker
separately - we
couldn't automate that, there are click-through licenses and stuff.
I don't compile GHC on Windows, as its kind of annoying to do, and the
binaries are usually sufficient for my needs. Typically MS tools are
well packaged and even if there is a click through license, it usually
involves checking a box and clicking next. I can't believe that anyone
is going to have any difficulty installing Visual Studio express.
Compare this to Cygwin/Mingw where the packaging is frankly awful, and
makes my head hurt every time I have to install it.
Not a fair comparison - I'm talking about *users* of GHC, who currently do not
have to download anything except GHC itself. With a Windows native port they'd
have to also get VS Express and the MASM package separately.
GHC *developers* wouldn't be any better off either. You'd still need either
Cygwin or MSYS for the build environment. There's no way I'm using MS build
tools, ugh.
Cheers,
Simon
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