Mail Archives: cygwin/1997/02/21/19:10:19
So apparently Fergus found the solution.
BUT, a last question springs to mind (And I really hope that this will
be the last one as I have the impression that this list is quickly
turning into a mailing list of lawyers)
Given that the executables produced by linking with the GNAT's libcygwin
are free of GLP code it remains the problem of distributing and using
cygwin.dll.
Can I distribute it into the same package (say the same tar archive)
with my proprietary software ?
And even if I don't, do my clients (commercial clients) have the right
to download it themselves and use if for commercial purposes without
paying a fee ?
Fergus Henderson wrote:
>
> Aubrey McAuley, you wrote:
> >
> > Fergus,
> >
> > Thanks for a very clear statement of the issues. I agree completely.
> > I have a question regarding your last comment:
> >
> > > Yes, the good news is that there seems to be a technical solution:
> > > there is a version of libcygwin.a that is freely available under a
> > > license that is compatible with the LGPL.
> >
> > What is this version you mention? mingw32? Where can it be found?
>
> The version I'm talking about is the one that is distributed with
> GNAT 3.09, which is available via <ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat/winnt>.
>
> Here's what Richard Kenner said about it on comp.lang.ada:
>
> | Subject: Re: Gnat 3.09 NT - Legal issues
> | From: kenner AT lab DOT ultra DOT nyu DOT edu (Richard Kenner)
> | Date: 1997/02/11
> | Message-Id: <5dom1k$6n7$1 AT news DOT nyu DOT edu>
> | References: <dewar DOT 855492299 AT merv> <32ff443d DOT 1365753 AT library DOT airnews DOT net>
> | <5dnpk4$iq9 AT mulga DOT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU>
> | Organization: New York University Ultracomputer Research Lab
> | Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
> |
> | In article <5dnpk4$iq9 AT mulga DOT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU> fjh AT murlibobo DOT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU
> | (Fergus Henderson) writes:
> | >If the code generated by GNAT for NT/Win95 using cynwin32 really doesn't
> | >include any of the libcygwin.a code, could you perhaps explain to us
> | >how (technically speaking) you avoided that?
> |
> | 99% of libcygwin.a is automatically-generated jump vectors to
> | cygwin32.dll, which is GPL'ed, but not included in the generated
> | executable. The rest of the files used to build that library, plus
> | the file used to build crt0.o, constitute only a handful of files,
> | some of which were copyrighted under the Berkeley copyright, which
> | imposes no restrictions. For the remaining couple of files, which
> | were tiny, we rebuilt libcygwin.a using the sources of those files
> | from an earlier version of Cygwin32, when they did not have GPL
> | copyrights.
> |
> | Thefore no code contained in the user's executable is covered by the
> | unmodified GPL (the GNAT run-time-library sources are covered by a
> | modified version of the GPL which permits use of the objects, without
> | restrictions, in user executables).
>
> --
> Fergus Henderson <fjh AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au> | "I have always known that the pursuit
> WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | of excellence is a lethal habit"
> PGP: finger fjh AT 128 DOT 250 DOT 37 DOT 3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
> -
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