Subject: Re: Revised Cygwin32 licensing terms
From: [email-masked] (Marcus G. Daniels)

10 Jul 1997 21:23:32 -0700
Approved: [email-masked]
Distribution: cygnus
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In-Reply-To: Geoffrey Noer's message of Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:03:46 -0700 (PDT)
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>>>>> "GN" == Geoffrey Noer <[email-masked]> writes:

GN> Some people see Cygwin32 as significantly more free under the new
GN> license since it will be much more usable for commercial projects.

But as Gordon Irlam reminds us:

  b) A GPL'ed application and cygwin.dll are, for copyright purposes,
     considered separate works.  The GPL only comes into play if a
     GPL'ed worked is combined with another work to create a derivative
     work.  cygwin.dll is a dynamic library, and it is not combined
     with other works (in a copyright sense) to create a derivative work.
     Other works only perform calls to the cygwin.dll.  So distributing
     a GPL'ed work and cygwin.dll separately, even on the same media, does
     not cause any conflicts with the GPL.

Therefore, there was never a fundamental problem using the GPL.  Minor
changes, like the one made for libcygwin.a, would have been sufficient
for the purpose of making Cygwin32 useful for commercial projects.

In any case, Cygnus could have chosen to use a weaker license -- 
a license like the X11 license.  The big change with the new license is
that the cygwin source code is not free, and contributors are on thin
ice if they think they can use it for their own commercial purposes.

There is a basic distinction between commercial and proprietary software.

 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware
 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/categories.html#CommercialSoftware
 http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/selling.html

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