Subject: Re: On Cygwin package naming and a setup.exe bug
From: Warren Young <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 04:39:46 -0600

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> 
> >On our
> >SourceForge downloads page we distribute a source tarball, a few binary
> >RPMs, and a Cygwin binary package.
> 
> And a cygwin source package, hopefully, if you want to be in compliance
> with the GPL.  

Not so.  Section 3c of the GPL exempts noncommercial distributors from
having to carry the source.  They can simply point you to where they
downloaded the code themselves.

You shouldn't give John a hard time; the PRC-Tools project is a free
software project in much the same spirit as Cygwin.  In fact, the two
projects are very similar: a GCC port to a non-Unix platform, for making
binaries native to that platform.

Now, if John were still working for Palm and posting from a palm.com
address, you'd be justified in being picky about the GPL.  But he's not,
and you shouldn't.

> Not surprising since this isn't a goal for setup.exe.  It's really only
> intended to install cygwin packages.

What makes PRC-Tools "not a Cygwin package" and, say, tcltk "a Cygwin
package"?  Both are programming language systems that live within the
Cygwin environment.

> I've got mixed feelings about putting concessions for
> other packages in setup.  It isn't really supposed to be a general purpose
> installation tool.

Keep in mind, this isn't a case of using setup.exe to install a
standalone package.  PRC-Tools on Windows is always used inside a Cygwin
environment.  John is just trying to make it simpler to make a PRC-Tools
distribution tarball that Cygwin's own installation tools will accept
and install.
-- 
= Warren Young, maintainer of the Palm OS Programmer's FAQ at:
=     http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent/palm/faq/
= 
= ICBM Address: 36.8274040 N, 108.0204086 W, alt. 1714m

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