[FR] Switch Windows builds to use LLVM (opensource Apache 2.0) instead of Visual Studio modules - clang-cl.exe and lld-link.exe

What's the problem this feature will solve?

The current builds of Python for Windows use the MSVC 14.X libraries which are covered under the Microsoft Visual Studio licenses. This means that any extension modules that are generated also fall under the same Microsoft licenses. Which is contrary to the the whole point of Python in general - the whole library should be OPEN SOURCE. So the very easy thing to do on Windows is to switch to the LLVM compilers that are 100% compatible with the MSVC builds. Since they already exist under LLVM (clang-cl.exe and lld-link.exe) the project SHOULD move toward their adoption, rather than continuing to use closed source build tools.

Describe the solution you'd like

Simply switch the default build tools for Python modules to use the LLVM clang-cl.exe and lld-link.exe so that Python on Windows is actually open-source, i.e. Apache 2.0 license.

Alternative Solutions

Well if you use MSVC to build Python it's always going to fall under the commercial license when people try to extend the functionality via compiled modules.

Additional context

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct

Start by reviewing how the distutils repository currently selects Windows compilers and linkers for Python and extension-module builds. Compare that path with the requested clang-cl.exe and lld-link.exe adoption; done would mean the default Windows build tools use them without breaking the existing build workflows.