[MLton] Windows port of MLton using the Microsoft tools(e.g.without MinGW)

[Nicolas Bertolotti]

Well, my goal is not to discuss whether Microsoft or GPL is free or not.

My goal is not either to discuss whether MLton has been well written or not,
or whether it is portable or not.

I'm wondering whether it possible to develop a native port of MLton for
Windows because it is something that might be useful (at least for me) and I
want to discuss about it.

I have tried a few things and got some results. What I want is to discuss
about them to determine whether it is going to be too complex and it's
better to wait for a 64 bits port of MinGW or if it is the way to go.

I don't need any information about "Felix". I don't know what it is and as
far as I know, it has nothing to do with the issue I'm facing. If you want
to promote it, please start another conversation with a different subject.

I also don't want anyone to tell me that it is impossible or stupid to work
on this subject as it certainly isn't.

Let's be pragmatic. I've done a few things. I'm going to submit my patches.
If you think you can help, then, please, don't hesitate to give your feed
back. If you are not interested, you can ignore my message ...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: skaller [mailto:skaller at users.sourceforge.net]
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:40 PM
> To: Nicolas Bertolotti
> Cc: 'Wesley Terpstra'; mlton at mlton.org
> Subject: RE: [MLton] Windows port of MLton using the Microsoft
> tools(e.g.without MinGW)
> 
> On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 18:19 +0200, Nicolas Bertolotti wrote:
> > > > luck to them! I will still use the MinGW port, though, because that
> > > > compiler is free and is less effort when I port from unix.
> > >
> > > MS also supplies a free compiler ..  Visual Studio Express
> > > including compilers is free to download!
> >
> > Available for free does not mean "free" ...
> 
> "free" as in "GPL" doesn't mean free either.
> 
> VS Express can't be redistributed, however the SDK DLLs
> you need to build working products quite specifically
> CAN be redistributed, and this is much 'freer' in all
> senses of the word than GNU software.
> 
> True, the code is not 'open source', but that is a different,
> though related, issue: GPL was in fact designed specifically
> NOT to be free at all, rather it was designed to enforce
> open-ness at the expense of real freedom. Were it genuinely
> free, it wouldn't be able to enforce the open-ness..
> 
> [We're talking 'free' as in 'right to use' rather than
> free as in 'not costing money']
> 
> --
> John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
> Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net