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

13 Feb 1997 11:29:54 -0800
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At 02:29 PM 2/12/97 -0800, Ted Lemon wrote:
>
>> I haven't seem anyone here flaming Cygnus.
>
>Hm.   Maybe we're reading different mailing lists.
>
>> Perhaps you mistake critical commentary for flames.
>
>The term flame is essentially synonymous with the phrase ``critical
>commentary'', although there is the connotation that a flame involves
>the loss of temper, and perhaps a bit of ranting.   By that
>definition, I suppose you could indeed characterize my previous
>message as a mild flame, but I've seen several messages aimed at
>Cygnus' press release which I would characterize as flames, but not as
>mild.
>
>I'm not against occasional flaming - it's just that this particular
>flamefest, like many in recent history on this mailing list, has gone
>beyond the stage of expressing disgruntlement, and has degenerated to
>noise.   It is no longer constructive, and it would be good if it
>would stop.
>

OK, I'm going to jump into this ongoing discussion.

I agree there has been allot of *talk* about this subject and that
many people have expressed their concerns over what this announcement
by Cygnus means.  Since determining the actual mood and/or intent of a
particular comment from someone is sometimes unclear in the written form,
whether some or any of these comments are meant as real "flames" or have
degenerated into real bashing is subjective, I would say.  I myself have no
interest in general flaming or bashing but I feel the "discussion" so far
has been largely on-topic, which is; does the fact that Gygnus intends to 
provide a commercial license mean that this product will either (1) fracture 
into two products (commercial and GPL freeware) that cannot share a code base
or (2) degenerate eventually to a product in one category or the other?  I've
seen allot of opinions about this but no clear answer.  However, there have 
been clarifying aspects to the discussion so far which I think are quite 
useful.  Various Cygnus development and support people have expressed their
opinion that they expect Cygnus to continue to provide both products.  The 
question of how that could legally be done while using GNU code has not been 
completely and satisfactorily answered though.  While various comments have 
seem to indicate that cygwin32.dll is the crux of the controversy, it is 
still unclear whether merely some or all of this entity is completely 
Cygnus's.  If it is only some (as has been suggested on this list), it is 
unclear to me how Cygnus can re-license it all under their own scheme without
breaking the GPL license (of course I am no lawyer nor a GPL license expert).
Also, if there are parts of cygwin32.dll which are under the GPL and some 
that are not, it would seem like Cygnus would need to separate these two 
parts in some way before it could attempt to redistribute their own stuff 
under another license.  What the division is between freeware and Cygnus 
"proprietary" (or should I say copyrighted) code is still what is in 
question here.  And, regardless of where the line is drawn, this causes a
problem for any contributing member on the net to those areas.  While I
don't think anyone objects to Cygnus's attempt to make some money off of 
this work in some way, contributions to code which is Cygnus-owned can
only be part of the commercial distribution if Cygnus has some agreement 
with all contributors to allow this.  However, if this does not happen 
and/or if people submit patches to this code which are under the GPL,
an ever widening dichotomy will develop between the functionality in the two
distributions.  This, in my mind, spells trouble which threatens one, the
other, or both distributions in the future.  This is MY concern.  While I
have my own preferences for the direction this product takes and the 
flexibility I have in using it, I am even more interested in knowing that
it will continue to exist!  Since the unanswered question of how these two
distributions can coexist is still an issue, I personally would like to see 
discussion on this topic continue.  At the same time, I'd rather not see it
degenerate into noise and go off-topic.  To be honest, I think it would be
possible to clear up this crucial question with just one message of 
clarification from the right person at Cygnus.  Follow that by another (or
perhaps the same) message outlining the probable fee structure for the 
commercial product and I think you'd find this area of discussion quiets 
right down.  Any other "comments" after that would likely be "noise" from 
those who, however understandably, are unhappy with the change in general.

OK, I yield the floor....

Larry Hall                              [email-masked]
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (617) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                          (617) 239-1655 - FAX
Wellesley, MA  02181                             

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