From: shebs AT cygnus DOT com (Stan Shebs) Subject: Re: Cygnus Cygwin32 Press Release 1/21/97 13 Feb 1997 05:01:48 -0800 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <199702130125.RAA14392.cygnus.gnu-win32@andros.cygnus.com> Original-To: jqb AT netcom DOT com Original-CC: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-reply-to: <3301BB64.7151@netcom.com> (message from Jim Balter on Wed, 12 Feb 1997 04: 45:24 -0800) Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 04:45:24 -0800 From: Jim Balter I was not referring to Cygnus' philosophy in general, only their philosophy towards FREE software. Placing free software under both the GPL and under a restricted-distribution license is a definite deviation. True enough, this is a change from past practices. We've also switched to bringing in $20M/year instead of $1k/month. :-) Cygnus is just a business, and we have to adapt our strategy to what makes the most sense businesswise. We *do* have precedent for dual licensing - Aladdin's Ghostscript. I hear more votes of thanks to Peter Deutsch than I hear condemnations... One result is that folks like me, who are thoroughly familiar with the POSIX standard and just how far cygwin deviates from it, will now be loathe to share any improvements to it. If I do share them, I will put them under the GPL, which means *you can't use them*, which means that cygwin as a public entity and cygwin as a Cygnus proprietary entity would diverge, something that the GPL and LGPL were explicitly intended to avoid. I don't see how you get that out of the GPL, and in any case, the GPL has had no apparent effect on the divergence of GNU tools. There are dozens and dozens of variant GCC and GDB releases out in the world - Intel's i960 tools, Wind River's tools, Lynx' tools, versions for funky DSPs, and many others. The only distinguishing characteristic of FSF releases is that they are distributed more widely. With respect to taking contributed changes, Cygnus has the same policy for winsup as the FSF does for GNU tools; nothing beyond a small patch can be accepted without a disclaimer or assignment of copyright. If you look carefully at the GNU sources, you'll see that they're all copyright FSF. That keeps the code from having multiple owners with conflicting terms, which IMHO has been a key success factor for GNU; no company can grab at GNU sources because they've all handed over paperwork giving up ownership. So, just how much money do you really think you can make from your proprietary licenses, that this is worth it? Have you folks even *considered* putting cygwin under the LGPL and charging for support, per your motto? The truth is that we've already heard from a number of prospects asking about license terms - they don't have a problem with the concept, since they work with a multitude of licenses every single day, and they just want to know the price. In the larger markets that are now adopting cygwin32, it's actually *easier* to sell licenses than to explain the GPL or LGPL over and over again. Kind of ironic... (Which motto are you thinking of anyway?) Stan - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".