RE: Mingw win32 headers license

> I wonder if the license of these headers is compatible
> with LGPL and whether it is possible to use these
> headers in our project?

OK.
 
> The license is below
> 
> License 2.0
> 
>   You are free to use, modify and copy this package as
> long as this
>   README.w32api file is included unmodified with any
> distribution, source or
>   binary, of this package.  

This restriction might possible violate the LGPL since it
means that we can't remove the file README.w32api.

Of course this is more a theoretical problem than a practical.

> No restrictions are
> imposed on any package or 
>   product using or incorporating this package.  You
> are free to license your 
>   package as you see fit.

OK. This means that it is non viral.
   
>   You may not restrict others freedoms as set forth in
> the above paragraph.
>   You may distribute this library as part of another
> package or as a
>   modified package if and only if you do *not*
> restrict others freedoms as
>   set forth in the above paragraph as it concerns this
> package.  

I'm not sure what this means. Obviously using or incorperating
it can't change the orginal license of the package.
Copyright law already forbids this.

Since it is non viral it doesn't restrict "using or
incorperating" on other code either.

> You do have
>   the right to restrict uses of any package using this
> package.

Note that this unlike the first time it only says "using"
not "using or incorperating".

So perhaps it means that you can use the package unmodified
but if you modify it the modifictions can't be more restrictive
that it is they can't be under LGPL.

Not that this a unsurmountable problem for Wine but it 
might mean that the headers can't be LGPL.
 
>   This package is distributed in the hope that it will
> be useful, but
>   WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
> warranty of
>   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

The LGPL says roughly the same thing so no problem.

In short:
I think it is almost but not quite compatible.
Why not ask the authors for explict permission?

In any case. Why do you want to incorparate the MINGW Win32 headers?

Headers in general have very little copyright since they
are MUCH closer to facts than normal code.

Cuting and pasting a few function is not any problem as long
as you remove formating and comments (especially expressive
comments).

There is script in the Wine tree (written by me) that does this already.

tools/winedump/function_grep.pl '' /usr/include/stdio.h

Note that it is quite slow and a little ad hoc.
All header files might not work 100%.
Please report any problems to me.

The output format in not perfect but you can pipe it to:
	perl -pe 's/^.*?:(.*?)$/$1;/'
to make it better.