Subject: Re: Cygnus Cygwin32 Press Release 1/21/97
From: [email-masked] (Stan Shebs)

13 Feb 1997 05:01:48 -0800
Approved: [email-masked]
Distribution: cygnus
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In-reply-to: <[email-masked]> (message from Jim Balter on Wed, 12
	Feb 1997 04: 45:24 -0800)
Original-Sender: [email-masked]

   Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 04:45:24 -0800
   From: Jim Balter <[email-masked]>

   I was not referring to Cygnus' philosophy in general, only their
   philosophy towards FREE software.  Placing free software under
   both the GPL and under a restricted-distribution license is a definite
   deviation.

True enough, this is a change from past practices.  We've also
switched to bringing in $20M/year instead of $1k/month. :-) Cygnus is
just a business, and we have to adapt our strategy to what makes the
most sense businesswise.  We *do* have precedent for dual licensing -
Aladdin's Ghostscript.  I hear more votes of thanks to Peter Deutsch
than I hear condemnations...

   One result is that folks like me, who are thoroughly
   familiar with the POSIX standard and just how far cygwin deviates
   from it, will now be loathe to share any improvements to it.
   If I do share them, I will put them under the GPL, which means *you
   can't use them*, which means that cygwin as a public entity and cygwin
   as a Cygnus proprietary entity would diverge, something that the GPL
   and LGPL were explicitly intended to avoid.

I don't see how you get that out of the GPL, and in any case, the GPL
has had no apparent effect on the divergence of GNU tools.  There are
dozens and dozens of variant GCC and GDB releases out in the world -
Intel's i960 tools, Wind River's tools, Lynx' tools, versions for
funky DSPs, and many others.  The only distinguishing characteristic
of FSF releases is that they are distributed more widely.

With respect to taking contributed changes, Cygnus has the same policy
for winsup as the FSF does for GNU tools; nothing beyond a small patch
can be accepted without a disclaimer or assignment of copyright.  If
you look carefully at the GNU sources, you'll see that they're all
copyright FSF.  That keeps the code from having multiple owners with
conflicting terms, which IMHO has been a key success factor for GNU;
no company can grab at GNU sources because they've all handed over
paperwork giving up ownership.

   So, just how much money do you really think you can make from your
   proprietary licenses, that this is worth it?  Have you folks even
   *considered* putting cygwin under the LGPL and charging for support,
   per your motto?

The truth is that we've already heard from a number of prospects
asking about license terms - they don't have a problem with the
concept, since they work with a multitude of licenses every single
day, and they just want to know the price.  In the larger markets that
are now adopting cygwin32, it's actually *easier* to sell licenses
than to explain the GPL or LGPL over and over again.  Kind of ironic...

(Which motto are you thinking of anyway?)

							Stan
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