[Python-Dev] Optionally using GMP to implement long if available (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Tue Nov 4 06:48:38 CET 2008

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Thomas Wouters writes:

> Neither of those (shipping sources or dynamically linking to GMP) would > solve the LGPL issue. People who distribute that build of Python would still > be held by the LGPL -- such as shipping any sources that they embed that > Python into. No, that's exactly what the "L" in "LGPL" means. You only have to ship the sources to any object module (library or program) actually containing GMP code, including any modifications you make to them. So if GMP is kept entirely in a separate library and you don't borrow any code from it, the rest of your code is not affected by the LGPL.

Sure. However, when you ship pythonxy.dll to your users, and it links with gmp.dll, you will have to ship gmp.dll to your users, as well - they just won't accept having to download gmp.dll from elsewhere (they may not even know what Python is). So then you have to include the source (of GMP, not Python). The L is really only about "include source just from the library (gmp), not the application (Python)".

Regards, Martin

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