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

31 Mar 1997 12:08:01 -0800
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Original-To: Jim Balter <[email-masked]>
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<<snip>>
>
>You seem to be confused by the fact that much GPLed code is owned
>by the FSF, including code that was written by others but ownership
>was turned over to the FSF, and perhaps by the fact that the GPL itself
>is copyrighted by the FSF.  The GPL is a document that describes the
>terms of a copyright, terms that involve the granting of software
>licenses.  The "License" in "GPL" is a license to the "General
>Public" from the owner of the copyright, not a license from the FSF.
>How could the FSF possibly have licensing rights to code owned by
>Cygnus to the exclusion of Cygnus; how were they granted such exclusive
>rights?  As opposed to code that Cygnus turned over to the FSF, such as
>BFD; cygwin.dll is not such code.  Anybody can put their code, code they
>own, code they have the copyright to, under the GPL, which happens to be
>published by the FSF.  That does not automatically give the FSF any
>special legal standing, including licensing rights.  There is nothing in
>the GPL that gives the FSF any rights to code copyrighted under it
>(other than the rights that *everyone* in the public gets).
>
>
>Really, all these issues have been discussed before and elsewhere;
>I'm not the best person to debate them with, and this isn't the
>best place to do it.  So if you think I've said something false,
>I direct you to gnu.misc.discuss (where you won't necessarily
>get the right answers either), the FSF and Cygnus legal departments,
>the U.S. Patent and Copyrights office, etc.
>
>But then, I thought you didn't care. :-)
>
Wow! I must be out of touch with all this! I guess I need to re-read
the gpl.

I think I'll skip the gnu.misc.discuss. I need one more mailing
list or newsgroup like I need a hole in my head.

Your stating that Stallman considers code derived from the bison
skelleton as being free source because it derives from bison is
pretty schocking. I've never heard anything like that!

Well I'm considerring adding gcc to the unix like toolset I distribute
for NT/windows 95. My toolset has no cygwin dependence since they were
all built with vc++ . 

I guess if I choose to distribute the cygwin dll then people
building applications could potentially have to deal with those GPL
issues. However since the cygwin dll is separately available from
other sources it seems totally safe to me but of course lawyers can
always hassle you no matter what you do. And that is what it will
come down to. For some small fry, nobody will care anyway and for
someone that has something to worry about, paying cygnus 10k or
whatever to avoid getting hassled is no big deal. Although someone
with 10k to spend may choose some competing commercial product
like nutcraker.

Has any of GPL ever been tested in court?

reed

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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