Subject: Re: [ANN] Cygwin DEV survey
From: Stipe Tolj <[email-masked]>
To: DJ Delorie <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 00:33:11 +0100

DJ Delorie wrote:

> >     - latest cygwin full.exe distrbution
> >     - latest pre-compiled egcs replacement
> 
> No problem here, these are all GPL.  Just remember that you must
> include all the sources that go with them.  This means that if you
> have multiple copies of the cygwin dll, you must have multiple copies
> of the sources for the dll as well.

Of course we will distrbute the full sources for the binary
distributions of cygwin. I suppose we will use the official cygwin b20.1
for binary distributions, this may be compliant to the sources.

> >     - latest cygwin-snapshots
> 
> I wouldn't recommend this, except perhaps to put them in a directory
> that's clearly labelled EXPERIMENTAL.  We don't even check these
> snapshots before posting them, and except for the ChangeLogs there's
> no documentation about them.

Of course this has been PLANNED to be labeled highly experimental, like
the Linux hacker kernel versions are. We suppose this should provide new
users an easy way to drop into the development and hence enhance the
contribution towards the cygwin project. 

> >     - pre-compiled libraries and headers for /usr/local/include and
> > /usr/local/lib
> >         - like X11R6.4, crypt, ncurses, gmp, readline, gd, ...
> >     - pre-compiled applications for /usr/local/
> >         - like X11R6.4, XEmacs, LyX, GIMP, mSQL, PostgreSQL, Apache,
> > inetutils, ssh
> 
> Be careful about distribution terms.  Anything compiled with cygwin
> must be distributed under the terms of the GPL - not just the terms of
> the application itself.  This means that *all* applications on the CD
> *must* include full sources, not just patches.  You can't distribute
> anything whose distribution terms are incompatible with the GPL.

Basicly we have planned to include any packages that re-compiles on our
development system and include full sources. Most applications fit this
restrictions.

As you mentioned in an later mail, RedHat and SuSE are themselves
distributed under GPL, but they had (in some cases even still do)
distribute software which sources are not freely available, think of Qt
from Troll Tech or the famous XForms lib.

One moment for off-topic:
FYI, the authors of xforms have provided us the full source code to
produce an cygwin b20 pre-compiled lib which has been done and will be
available soon on their distribution site.

> Also, ssh can't be exported from the USA and other countries might
> have restrictions also.  Safest to just leave it off.

yeah, the cryption restrictions. But what about the distributions of ssh
and SSLeay within the SuSE distributions, they are definitly included.
As I suppose such restrictions don't apply for Germany where our servers
are operating.

> > and all the other ports available at ftp.franken.de
> 
> Warning: I've not seen full sources on ftp.franken.de, which is a
> violation of the GPL.  You'll have to get the sources those packages
> were compiled with, verify that the sources you have actually build
> the executables you are distributing (usually by rebuilding), and ship
> them together.

That's right, not all of them include sources, but as I mentioned above,
we will only include packages whose sources have been re-compiled on our
own systems. Hence we will ask the individual porters for source supply
if the inclusion of a package is considered. 

> >     - any available sources for the pre-compiled cygwin ports
> 
> That should be *all*, if you are distributing the binaries for them.
> The GPL requires it.

And what about the binary ONLY distribution of Qt and xforms within SuSE
6.0, are they violation GPL hence?!

> >     - cygwin documentation
> 
> No problem here, I think.  There isn't much anyway :(

I suppose there may be cygwin users of the mailing list who may wish to
contribute at least mini-howtos to include for the first release.

> >     - a HTML mirror of the complete mailing list contents
> 
> Good luck.  Please don't mirror my site, as that would put a pretty
> heavy load on my server, and the URLs won't be valid Win32 file names
> (they have colons in them, and are cgi-generated).  There are about
> 22,000 messages, which would mean 22,000 hits to a *cgi* on my server
> to download them all.  I don't see the benefit to this either, since
> the web versions have search engines and are continuously updated.

We thought this may be an addition information repository since the
documentation is pretty weak. I suppose a tarball provided from
sourceware would be the best and least server loading solution.

Regards,
Stipe

-- 
Stipe Tolj <[email-masked]>
Cygwin Porting Project
Department of Economical Computer Science        
University of Cologne, Germany                  
http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~tolj

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