Subject: Re: Commercial Licensing
From: [email-masked] (Jim Balter)

30 Mar 1997 21:55:48 -0800
Approved: [email-masked]
Distribution: cygnus
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Original-To: Reed Kotler Consulting <[email-masked]>
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Reed Kotler Consulting wrote:

> I suppose thought that you could relink cygwin.dll adding those other
> components and then you wouldnt be violating any rules.

libccrt0 has to live in the .exe, not the dll.  If Cygnus had published
an interface specification for cygwin.dll then of course you could
just say that you were following the spec if you provided your own
version, but they haven't.  As I said, I don't know how copyright
law applies to reverse engineering.

> In that case you could distribute your own version of cygwin.dll,
> under GPL of course and then you would not be linking in any code
> from cygwin.dll.

Distributing a modified cygwin.dll or putting it at an ftp site
separately from that which depends on it is really pushing things, and
seems pretty dangerous if anyone actually brought suit.

> However, presumably cygnus can't enforce GPL anyway, only FSF can do
> that.

Huh?  The copyright on libcygwin.a and cygwin.dll belong to Cygnus
Solutions, not the FSF; the FSF just publishes the text of copyright,
but that doesn't give them any legal standing.  And it's the courts that
enforce these things.

--
<J Q B>
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