These would fall under that GPL exception. It's the same like, say, GTK+ having to use a Win32 API to be able to do its job of opening a window and painting into it.
I see that Emacs' w32fns.c source file uses ShellExecuteEx. Why not insist that CMD.EXE has to be spawned to run stuff.
So the part I don't understand is why the GPL exception wouldn't apply, if it is a system library that is going to be there on any Apple box.
Emacs integrates a lot of various Mac-specific API's.
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/nsfns.m
... and other "ns" files.
These would fall under that GPL exception. It's the same like, say, GTK+ having to use a Win32 API to be able to do its job of opening a window and painting into it.
I see that Emacs' w32fns.c source file uses ShellExecuteEx. Why not insist that CMD.EXE has to be spawned to run stuff.