Mail Archives: cygwin/2001/09/14/20:26:25
Charles Wilson wrote:
> David A. Cobb wrote:
>
>> Would someone in the know please explain why there are licensing
>> issues between GLibC and Newlib? Are they not both GPL?
>>
>
> Sigh. this has been explained so many times I am surprised your search
> of the archives did not reveal it. You *did* search the archives, right?
>
> Cygnus (now Red Hat) releases cygwin under two licenses: the GPL and a
> proprietary license. People who purchase cygwin under the proprietary
> license are allowed to distribute cygwin-based binaries WITHOUT
> distributing their source code. (You may not like this arrangement, but
> it's the way things are. Besides, the proceeds pay Chris' and Corinna's
> and others' salaries...)
Yes, I knew that much.
>
> Anyway, ONLY the copyright owner of a particular work is allowed to
> establish the license terms. If you take GPL code that you do not own,
> you can't change the license -- although the GPL gives you certain
> redistribution rights.
OK, one cannot simply "borrow" (steal) from it even when it's open.
>
> Since Red Hat needs to specify the license, they need to own the code.
> They don't own the glibc code. Therefore they can't use it (as part of
> cygwin1.dll -- e.g. newlib) [This also explains why everybody who
> contributes to cgywin1.dll must sign over copyright to Red Hat].
And glibc is, I presume, owned by FSF.
>
> --Chuck
Must one then observe "white room" conditions when developing, say, for
a piece to go into newlib & cgywin1? That is, carefully avoid knowing
/anything/ about the glibc implementation?
To what extent may one legitimately learn from a free-speech program
without actually extracting code? This is very much like an old
question about what, precisely, is copyrighted. Once upon a time I knew
the answer - the exact program text. But that was before the new
copyright laws and the days of software patents.
A library such as this must implement a very well-defined result; it
would be pretty surprising if two implementations did not have a great
deal in common. Even short sequences, at least, of instructions are
very likely in both.
--
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate, All around
nice guy.
New PGP key 09/13/2001:
:<http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=superbiskit&\
fingerprint=on>
:<http://wwwkeys.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=superbiskit&\
fingerprint=on>
Fingerprint=0x{E7C6_4EE2_6B75_5BA3_C52E__77FA_63C3_9366_DCFB_229B}
"By God's Grace I am a Christian man, by my actions a great sinner."
--The Way of a Pilgrim, R. M. French [tr.]
Potentially Viral Software is any software for which you are not allowed
to examine the source. Do not buy or use Potentially Viral Software!
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