Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Support for building under Visual Studio 2k3

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From: Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 10:35:44 -0600
Olivier Biot (Ethereal) wrote:
> If I remember correctly, one issue was the fact that after MSVC++ 6.0
> the runtime libraries were not anymore "system libraries" as they had to
> be shipped with the software you build and package. The GPL then
> requires that the C runtime libraries must be provided with their source
> code, which Microsoft feels reluctant to.

It looks like the FSF defines the C RTL as being part of the operating
system:

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WindowsRuntimeAndGPL

We might be able to distribute MSVCR7x.DLL with Ethereal, but we'd have
to rebuild a lot of other libraries, as you point out below:

> Another problem is that the MSVC++ 2003 tooklit only contains *static*
> libraries, so yuo could potentially have serious issues about "I thought
> that chunk of memory was allocated in *my* module, but it doesn't seem
> to be true". You'll have to rebuild all modules Ethereal relies upon
> today (Gtk, GLib and their dependencies for a start - maybe some other
> people already tried this in the Gtk/Glib/GNOME community).