On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 7:28 AM, Brian Gladman <b...@gladman.plus.com> wrote: > On 18/02/2013 09:56, Gilbert wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> Thanks for maintaining MPIR! >> >> I'm currently working on bringing my geometry library for Boolean/CSG >> operations up to snuff: https://github.com/gilbo/cork The library relies on >> exact, big number arithmetic. For Linux/Unix/Mac builds, I simply have >> users link against the GMP library, but for the Windows build, I have them >> link against MPIR. Unfortunately, installing MPIR for Visual Studio is >> turning out to be difficult for some of my users. So I was wondering... >> >> 1) Is it safe to build MPIR DLLs on one Windows machine and distribute to >> others, or is the produced DLL hardware-specific? Are there any gotchas I >> should be watching for here? > > The generic C version will work on all systems provided you build it > without any processor specific optimisations. It is also likely that > assembler based versions for older processors will also work but those > for modern architectures will probably fail since they will be using > instructions that the target machine may not have. Some comments based on distributing GMPY and GMPY2 with MPIR....
I use Pentium 3 assembly code for 32-bit binaries, and K8 assembly code for 64-bit binaries. Those choices may not be ideal, but I haven't had any problems reported, either. > >> 2) What is the preferred approach to handling the LGPL if I distribute MPIR >> binaries with my library? I saw this thread ( >> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mpir-devel/geF6ZlU7kFg/YZBeykpGW7gJ ) so I >> thought it would be better to sort this out up front. > > I am not an expert here but I believe that you need to include the > license text in the distribution and ensure that there is a clear > description of where to obtain all the source code, build files and > other items needed to create the binary in question from scratch IIRC, the key requirements are: 1) provide the license text 2) provide a download for all source, build files etc. that are required to create the DLL. Linking to a source download on another site is not sufficient since that site may go away. 3) the end user must be able to replace the provided binary (i.e. the MPIR DLL) with one that they compile themselves. For GMPY2, I provide an optional download that contains the source of MPIR, MPFR, MPC, etc. that I use to create the binaries. I believe that is sufficient but I am not a lawyer. :) > >> 3) Are there any plans to provide a Windows binary distribution through the >> MPIR site? If so, that would be fantastic. I could point my users there >> and be sure they're getting a well-maintained version of the library >> (instead of whatever janky DLL I manage to build in my free time). > > The short answer is 'no' I'm afraid since there would either have to be > many different variants or ones without optimisation and hence > relatively poor performance. > > You indicate that people are having difficulty using MPIR with Visual > Studio. But there are very few reports or requests for help with this on > the MPIR site or on this forum. It is important if people are having > problems that they report this or ask for help since we cannot solve > problems if people don't tell us about them! > > Brian > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "mpir-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to mpir-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to mpir-devel@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mpir-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mpir-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to mpir-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
