gmp

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Yitzchak Gale:
> OK for the time
> being, but it would be really, really good to be able to compile
> ghc without gmp.

Well, just go ahead and write an alternative portable & high- 
performance implementation of Integer.

> This idea of a Mac OS X binary with statically-linked
> gmp is nice, it is really convenient. But someone needs
> to completely clarify the license issues in that case, and
> make it completely clear to all users.

I completely agree that we need to document the situation clearly.   
Otherwise, I don't really see what the fuss is about.  Most GHC users  
don't care whether GMP is linked into their code (as its either only  
used internally or has a GPL-compatible license anyway).

If a company wants to distribute GHC compiled binaries of non-GPL  
compatible code, well, they have to compile their own version of GHC  
on the Mac that links GMP dynamically, and then, use that version of  
GHC to link their final product.  That is going to be a trivial task  
compared to developing that product in the first place.  So, who cares?

Manuel