[SciPy-User] Windows 64bits support

[Sturla Molden]

Jerome Kieffer <Jerome.Kieffer at esrf.fr> wrote:

> I usually develop on Linux, but our concerns were about how difficult
> it is to get running (and re-distribute) software based on "official"
> versions.

Redistribution is a major reason we are not using Intel Fortran and MKL.
Even though the SciPy project has a permission from Intel to distribute
NumPy and SciPy built with their tools, it will produce licensing issues
downstream if someone wants to redistribute the binaries. Robert Kern had
some strong (but well informed) opinions on this last time it was
discusssed, so you can search up that.

Redistribution will for most parties be easier if we use a MinGW-w64 based
toolchain and OpenBLAS. But a third-party might also object to redistribute
GNU libraries (e.g. libgfortran) but be ok with shipping Intel libraries,
so there is no perfect answer to this. 

If you need to redistribute SciPy binaries for Windows you can probably
also contact Enthought or Continuum IO and ask to purchase a license to
redistribute their software. (I don't know if they sell such licenses, but
they might; nor do I know what they might charge for it.)

Getting Carl Kleffner's toolchain ready is limited by the fact that nobody
is really working on it. But SciPy 0.16 milestone is due in a year it
seems, so perhaps it will be ready then? And if you want to make sure it
happens, you know what to do :)

Sturla