From: Paul AT chocolat DOT foobar DOT co DOT uk (Paul Shirley) Subject: Re: Cygnus Cygwin32 Press Release 1/21/97 10 Feb 1997 18:55:37 -0800 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <2AUWrCAMx2$yEwOt.cygnus.gnu-win32@foobar.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Original-To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-Reply-To: <32FE9EFB.40EE@netcom.com> X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.02 Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In message <32FE9EFB DOT 40EE AT netcom DOT com>, Jim Balter writes >> Unfortunently what they are >> saying is only they can make money from this effort. No. What they are saying is you can make money under the LGPL licence terms *or* pay them some money for normal commercial terms (ie no source/object distribution required) >The software is free, so they can say it but it isn't so. >Cygnus can make money off of support, as they have always done >(see their motto); you can too, and they can't stop you. But if they >think they can make money off of licenses for cygwin.dll, they are >dreaming (I won't even comment about the claims about "most >complete", "true compatibility", and "POSIX" in that press release, >except that the latter opens them up to a lawsuit if they haven't been >POSIX-certified). They have already given the code away under the GPL. Unless Cygnus have assigned the copyright to the FSF they can do anything they like with cygwin.dll. The (L)GPL prevents them retractively withdrawing GPL rights from a specific distribution. It *does not prevent another distribution under a different licence* by the copyright holders. Remember, the copyright holders don't need to be licenced to use or distribute their own code. It is fair to say that only people who need the Unix/gcc compatibility are likely to find the commercial licence a viable option to VC, but thats a whole different discussion. -- Paul Shirley - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".