Mail Archives: cygwin/2001/06/21/16:56:36
Trust me, this is on-topic...see the punchline at the end.
Microsoft has released their "Mobile Internet Toolkit" SDK under a new
EULA, that seems to prohibit using any "Publicly Available Software" or
"Potentially Viral Software" (aka GPL'ed) with the toolkit -- even if
the "Potential Viral Software" is merely used as a tool, and not as part
of your product. That is, you can't compile your own code using gcc --
if your code will link to the SDK. This is a LEGAL requirement, not a
technical restriction. You can't even use VIM to edit your own code if
it will be linked with the SDK. "Viral" licenses include: GPL, LGPL,
Artistic, Mozilla Public License, Netscape Public License, Sun Community
Source License, Sun Industry Standards License, etc.
Slashdot has a discussion going here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/06/21/1810258&mode=nested
but there are currently far too few legal-beagles commenting on it, so
most interpretations of the EULA are 'IANAL, but...'
Read the EULA for yourself here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-files/027/001/516/eula_mit.htm
My favorite comment (and the reason I posted this to the cygwin list --
it really is on-topic, I promise):
"On the other hand the truly paranoid could make a case for the idea
that they are testing the waters, and will soon be busting Cygnus for
porting the GNU toolset to XP."
Okay, that's a bit extreme -- but if this EULA turns out to be legally
enforceable, could they then apply the same license to the main Windows
DLLs -- in XP or Windows.NET? In that case, cygwin really is screwed.
--Chuck
--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
- Raw text -