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

13 Feb 1997 20:46:50 -0800
Approved: [email-masked]
Distribution: cygnus
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In-reply-to: <[email-masked]> (message from Jim Balter on Thu, 13
	Feb 1997 15: 34:09 -0800)
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   Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 15:34:09 -0800
   From: Jim Balter <[email-masked]>

   [...] people who want to make
   contributions but would have liked to have had the code put under the
   LGPL rather than the GPL may be reluctant to sign ownership over to
   Cygnus, who then become the only ones with the right to build
   proprietary products with it.  That is *not* the case when people sign
   code over to the FSF, because the FSF puts libraries under the LGPL
   rather than retaining unique rights to proprietary use.

That is true.  When you sign code over to somebody else, you do lose
some control of the situation.  For instance, the actual entity that
is the "FSF" is very small (~5 people) and has very little money.  If
Microsoft wanted to, they could probably come up with a way to make
the FSF disappear and acquire ownership of all the GNU code - hey,
when you have $20 billion to work with, law and public opinion mean
little.  So how safe is it to assign your copyright to the FSF?

   Cygnus wants to make lots of money.  That's fine.  But wanting to do so
   via restrictive licenses, and doing so in a way that facilitates others
   to hoard their source is quite definitely not in line with the GNU
   manifesto.  There is no crime in not sharing that philosophy; most
   people don't.  But I think Cygnus was started on a different premise,
   RMS' premise that one could make reasonable amounts of money in a world
   where all software is free.  If Cygnus's experience is that that isn't
   the case, or that even those few who subscribe to such a philosophy are
   unable to resist the temptation to "do better", it is worth knowing.

I wasn't around when Cygnus was founded, but in conversations with the
founders, I never got the impression that they had in mind making only
"reasonable amounts of money", or that they were focussed only on the
"world where all software is free".  The GNU Manifesto is a stirring
document, but proposes software taxes and government involvement,
which doesn't really jibe with the libertarian leanings of the Cygnus
founders.

I think this misunderstanding is an side-effect of Cygnus laboring in
obscurity while the FSF gets most of the attention.  We do a huge
amount of infrastructure and groundwork, not just in code, but in the
hearts and minds of the business world.  We spend a lot of time
talking to suits about how, no, GCC's GPL doesn't mean they have to
give away their router's source code, and yes, even if RMS proclaims
their company as evil, that Cygnus will still deal with them, and so
forth.  We make the case that free software is good, not because it's
somehow morally superior, but because it has powerful leveraging
qualities at both tactical and strategic levels.  That point of view
is perhaps not as inspiring for some individual hackers, but for
instance, it is now the case that every company coming out with a new
32-bit microprocessor will spend a bunch of money to be sure that a
GNU compiler is available when the chip is announced.  That kind of
ubiquity and credibility only comes from a business-oriented approach
to free software, and that's the approach that Cygnus takes.

							Stan

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