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Date:	Mon, 1 May 2000 19:33:50 -0400
Message-Id:	<200005012333.TAA19230@envy.delorie.com>
From:	DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
To:	KendallB AT scitechsoft DOT com
CC:	cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
In-reply-to:	<200005011535936.SM00160@KENDALLB>
Subject:	Re: Lack of Cygwin contributors? Was: How is textmode/binmode determined ...
References:	<CA2568D2 DOT 001D395F DOT 00 AT au-aapmta001 DOT aap DOT pwcinternal DOT com> (simon DOT p DOT cozens AT jp DOT pwcglobal DOT com) <200005011535936 DOT SM00160 AT KENDALLB>

>  1. Chris was complaining about the lack of *external* contributions 
> to the project. Whether you like it or not, the current licensing of 
> Cygwin has a significant effect on whether some developers 
> contribute. It certainly has for me.

I understand that.  I don't understand what you hope to gain by us not
offering proprietary-use licenses.

>  2. If the licensing was changed, I believer more external developers 
> would contribute to the project.

So, if the license were 100% GPL with no option for non-gpl use, you'd
contribute?

>  3. If Cygnus needs to sell expensive commercial licenses of Cygwin 
> in order to continue development, then the Open Source principles 
> have simply failed for this project. 

Fortunately, we're not as interested in "open source principles" as we
are interested in the principles of *free software*.  All version of
Cygwin are distributed under the terms of the GPL.  Some customers
purchase the right to also use it in other ways, but no customer is
bereft of the rights and freedoms the GPL grants them.  I don't think
you fully understand the significance of this.

What you seem to want is the ability, or "right", to use our free
software in your proprietary product, so that you can make more money,
without us making more money too.  Sorry, that's not one of the
principles we're interested in.

> Sure, but don't complain about the lack of external contributions 
> then. Live with the fact that you guys get paid to work full-time on 
> it and no-one else can. So you have to do all the work to make it 
> better.

No one else *can*?  I don't see how that's true.  Anyone *can* get
paid to work on Cygwin, just like Cygnus gets paid to work on gcc.
Every Cygnus employee (and every RH employee, I think) signs a form
that assigns *all* copyright to the FSF for any FSF-owned software we
work on.  The FSF could, if they wanted (but they won't), sell a
proprietary-use license for GCC.  Would that stop you from
contributing to gcc?  It doesn't stop us.

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