Subject: Re: Cygwin for Government Use
From: Reini Urban <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: "Hanson, Richard Mr CAA" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 05:23:54 +0100

Corinna Vinschen schrieb:
> when reading http://cygwin.com/licensing.html, you will find that the
> licensing of Cygwin is pretty clear.
> 
> Cygwin is Open Source, provided under the GNU Public License.
> 
> That means basically, that all software linked against the Cygwin library
> is automatically Open Source as well.
> 
> Two exception from this rule exist:
> 
> - If your applications linked against the Cygwin library are only used
>   for youyr own internal purposes, you don't have to make the sources
>   public as well.

Well, what about the poor internal guys using it?
To my understanding these internal guys must get access to the sources 
as well, even if it's a closed community. Every user must have access to 
the sources. (unfortunately not the data processed by the app :)
If it's the army, microsoft interns or the general public (if used 
publicly). Special contracts (see below) excluded.

That's why they pay obviously, because they don't want their internal 
users have access to the sources. (Who knows. High security area. 
Security by obfuscation obviously)

> - If you want to make your application public, but not the sources,
>   you have to purchase a special Cygwin contract from Red Hat, which
>   then excempt you from the GPL rule.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, there's no part of the Cygwin license which
> constraints governmental usage of Cygwin.
> 
> However, to get a final word on this, I forwarded this mail to our sales
> representative for Cygwin.
-- 
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/

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