Hi
I'm not sure I understand this. MS tools are free to download by anyone, but not redistributable. The binaries needed by programs *built* by those tools are not only free to download, they're free to redistribute, and they're less encumbered than almost all so-called 'free software' products.
"The binaries needed by programs built by these tools...", you're referring to the C runtime DLLs? Why does that matter?
Note I said "with no dependencies" above. A Windows native port of GHC would require you to go to MS and download the assembler and linker separately - we couldn't automate that, there are click-through licenses and stuff.
I don't compile GHC on Windows, as its kind of annoying to do, and the binaries are usually sufficient for my needs. Typically MS tools are well packaged and even if there is a click through license, it usually involves checking a box and clicking next. I can't believe that anyone is going to have any difficulty installing Visual Studio express. Compare this to Cygwin/Mingw where the packaging is frankly awful, and makes my head hurt every time I have to install it. I'm looking forward to having GHC built with Visual Studio, but I can understand why its not a priority - the advantages are relatively minimal. What I keep hoping is that Microsoft will put some serious thought into debugging Haskell - the MS tools for debugging blow away everything else. (I realise a start is being made in GHCi, and am looking forward to the end results!) Thanks Neil