That just confirms the parent comment's point. If you're just using the build tools directly, you're fine. If need to develop "with Visual Studio" i.e. the IDE, not just the command line tools, then you need the paid license.

Is the fancy text editor compiling, or the toolchain?

I don’t need visual to write, read, compile, or link any code using the toolchain.

Very weird comparison.

GPL was made in response to restrictive commercial licensing. Yes is uses the same legal document (a license): but is made in response!

So is propriety seizes to exist, then it's not a problem GPL also seizes to exist.

Also: it's quite obvious to me that IP-law nowadays too much. It may have been a good idea at first, but now it's a monster (and people seem to die because of it: Aaron Swartz and Suchir Balaji come to mind).

There are zero guarantees and commercial software uses GPLd software as parts of their products all the time. Licenses do not work and you shouldn't respect them whenever you can.

> Like a volume key license being resold against EULA or some such.

At least in the EU, this is legal.