Minimalist GNU for Windows
MinGW License
When Colin Peters released the MinGW runtime he placed the source into the public domain. No one owns a copyright (C) to the source because of this. You as a software manufacturer are free to use the MinGW runtime in your proprietary and open source? software as you see fit. The only thing you can't do is to claim ownership of the source and use Colin Peters' name, the MinGW name or the name of any of it's contributors in endorsement of any product.
For those interested in the actual legal details and technical points regarding copyright of the MinGW compiler system, copyright information is included in the headers and the source files of the compiler distribution package. The following also applies :
- The MinGW basic runtime system, which is basically the glue to the underlying operating system, is completely in the public domain. The runtime system includes MinGW headers (such as stdio.h), libraries (such as libmingw32.a) and import libraries for MSVCRT?.
- W32API, which consists of the headers and import libraries related to WIN32 API access, is released under public domain, except some files that have a copyright. Please read the readme files in the source distribution.
- copyright: The copyright agreement states no restrictions are placed on programs or object files compiled with the library.
- Some MinGW development tools, which include but is not limited to compilers and linkers in the bin directory, are released under the GNU General Public License. Others may be released under a different license. Each individual or bundled installation package will contain a file explaining the license.
- Profiled code, which is code compiled and linked with the -pg option for runtime profiling, falls under the GNU General Public License. CAUTION: do not distribute proprietary source with profiling enabled. The profiling library is covered by the GPL which infects your product to conform to the GPL as well.
Here are some further reference sources for the various licenses that apply to pieces of the MinGW distribution:
- GNU General Public License, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
- GNU Lesser General Public License, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lgpl.html
- For more information on the copyleft concept, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft
