Provide integer-simple builds on Windows.

Currently, I am unable to upgrade on windows to either 8.4.* or 8.6.* since for these versions, no GHC installer with the right licenses (in particular using integer-simple) are available. Could you please make the windows version of GHC with BSD3 / MIT license available on the next release?

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Operating system	Unknown/Multiple → Windows

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changed title from GHC with valid license on windows to Provide integer-simple builds on Windows.

I don't like the change of this issue. I want to build my software using GHC on windows without getting a LGPL license. Currently, the libraries that cause this problem is indeed only integer-gmp. Choosing integer-simple instead of integer-gmp is indeed a valid solution. However, since any package that is linked could cause the same problem on windows, I prefer to keep the intention of this issue broad.

What you want is a different licensed integer library or a dynamically linked gmp and you take care of the distribution of said library.

I changed the title because there's nothing "invalid" or "incorrect" about the current license, and even for 7.x and 6.x releases gmp has been statically linked.

Feel free to change it to something specific and actionable, right now, the easiest way to get what you want is using integer-simple. If you want something else to be done that can also be taken into consideration.

But the keywords and title before were just wrong.

See e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/140061/when-to-use-dynamic-vs-static-libraries

if you are using LGPL licensed code and you link statically against a LGPL library (and thus create one big binary), your code automatically becomes Open Sourced (free as in freedom) LGPL code.

Hence, since GHC on windows statically links its libraries with my source code: all my source code is LGPL code when I want to support the windows platform. For most organizations, a LGPL license is NOT acceptable. So maybe the title should have been ensuring acceptable license of software developed with GHC on all platforms.

And indeed, for now releasing an integer-simple ghc version does the trick, but I think GHC should address the general problem to become acceptable/ increase usage on the windows platform!

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This issue raises a problem with the licenses on windows due to static linking. The solution in the past was using another library than integer-gmp: integer-simple. But any solution is fine with me.

I just learned about: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/wikis/design/integer-gmp2 . Is this already included in the ghc software? If so, is this a solution to the license problems raised by this issue?

integer-gmp2 has indeed been merged a long time ago but it doesn't solve your licensing issue as it is still using GNU GMP.

Building GHC with integer-simple library instead of integer-gmp should solve the licensing issue. But it seems like we don't provide an integer-simple bindist for Windows and stack doesn't provide one either since 8.4 (cf https://github.com/commercialhaskell/ghc/releases?after=ghc-8.4.3-release).

@bgamari Could we provide Windows integer-simple bindists?

@hsyl20 I don't see why not. We can't afford to test all commits this way, but building a set of releases against integer-simple should be straightforward.

Done in !2850 (closed).

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