Hi John, On 11 Feb 2026, at 17:06, John Sarabacha wrote:
> Hi Carsten, > So if I wrote a Windows11 application and gave it a GPLv3 licensing and > included > the header file "windows.h", it and all it's nested includes would now be > GPLv3 and > Microsoft is forced to release it's source code with any distribution. Not Microsoft is forced, you (the developer) is forced. The licensing failure would be on your side in this case. Including "windows.h" in your code would make it part of a GPLv3 licensed work, but you are not allowed to do that in case the license of "windows.h" is not compatible with the GPLv3 (I have no idea what the licensing of "windows.h" is, it might be compatible with GPLv3, it might be redistributable. But quick research indicates it is not). Once you release that Windows11 application containing GPLv3 code, you would need to also publish "windows.h", as it is part of the full source code. But the redistribution license of "windows.h" might not allow that, so you are not allowed to use "windows.h" in an GPLv3 application in the first place. Using the original Microsoft header files with GPL licensed code is in a grey area. Even Microsoft does not know the implications (see https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/766 ). That is why GPL licensed compiler for Windows come with their own language bindings and header (such as MinGW) that are GPL or permissive licensed and not rely on the Microsoft versions of these header files. This discussion is now very much offtopic for this mailing list, as it is about software licensing, and not amForth specific. I recommend to bring this discussion to a list that has been set up for these kind of discussions, such as lists.sfconservancy.org Mailing Lists. (https://lists.sfconservancy.org/mailman/listinfo/). There it is more likely to find good answers on your questions. Greetings Carsten _______________________________________________ Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel
