Subject: Re: Commercial Licensing
From: [email-masked] (Reed Kotler Consulting)

30 Mar 1997 22:46:03 -0800
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Distribution: cygnus
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At 08:47 PM 3/30/97 -0800, Jim Balter wrote:
>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.
>
Why is that dangerous?

Isnt that the whole point of GPL?

You can modify the code as long as you give everyone else the
modifications.

>> 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.
>

I quote from section 3 of GPL

"Section 3 -

3.You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it,
thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such
modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
     above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: 
        1.You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. 
        2.You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part
thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
          parties under the terms of this License. 
        3.If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use
in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
          announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a
warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
          these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not
normally print such an announcement, your work based on the
          Program is not required to print an announcement.) 
     These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and
can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
     themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work
     based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the
terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of
     who wrote it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim
rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the
intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative
     or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere
aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or
with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage
     or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope
of this License. 
"

Clearly it's okay to distribute a modified cygwin if it's subject to GPL.

In addition, it states clearly  "it is not the intent of this section to
claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you;
rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of
derivative
     or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere
aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or
with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage
     or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope
of this License. "

Thus, even if you link in their .a you still don't violate GPL.

The whole point of GPL is to prevent someone from doing something like
taking cygwin.dll, improving it and then not letting everyone else
have the improvements.

It's not meant, as clearly stated, to cause some "independent work" to
be become part of GNU.

Also, it's my understanding that even if cygnus owns the copyright,
the GPL is a license from FSF so I don't see how somebody else could
enforce the license.

reed

>--
><J Q B>
>

Reed Kotler
http://www.reedkotler.com  home of a nice unix like toolset for windows NT/95
http://www.justjazz.com    home of a jazz musicians discussion list
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