[Mono-list] BASIC, Compilers and Salutations

[Sebastien Lambla]

Section 5 of the LGPL:

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A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is
designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is
called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a
derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of
this License
-----

That means that the "Library" would here be your software, and the "work
that uses the library" the msvcrt.dll. So as far as I understand it, that
means that, "in isolation", these dlls are not to be covered by the LGPL to
be used. However:

Section 6 of the LGPL:

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For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the Library"
must include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the
executable from it. However, as a special exception, the materials to be
distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in
either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel,
and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
component itself accompanies the executable
-----

So as long as you don't have the dlls in your software, you don't have to
publish anything.

What I don't get is if these components are to be LGPL'd. And for me the
problem lies here. If you make the assumption that to link anything from an
LGPL'd component must be an LGPL'd piece of code, then you definitly can't
make GPL software with any Microsoft library or any commercial library.

Moreover, that would mean that the simple fact of binding to GPL'd libraries
on Linux from the mono framework would mean that it would have to be GPL'd.

If I'm missing something here, can someone correct me please?

Sebastien Lambla