From: marcus AT cathcart DOT sysc DOT pdx DOT edu (Marcus G. Daniels) Subject: Re: Revised Cygwin32 licensing terms 10 Jul 1997 21:23:32 -0700 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: References: <199707110203 DOT TAA01657 AT cirdan DOT cygnus DOT com> Original-To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-Reply-To: Geoffrey Noer's message of Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:03:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.0 Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com >>>>> "GN" == Geoffrey Noer writes: GN> Some people see Cygwin32 as significantly more free under the new GN> license since it will be much more usable for commercial projects. But as Gordon Irlam reminds us: b) A GPL'ed application and cygwin.dll are, for copyright purposes, considered separate works. The GPL only comes into play if a GPL'ed worked is combined with another work to create a derivative work. cygwin.dll is a dynamic library, and it is not combined with other works (in a copyright sense) to create a derivative work. Other works only perform calls to the cygwin.dll. So distributing a GPL'ed work and cygwin.dll separately, even on the same media, does not cause any conflicts with the GPL. Therefore, there was never a fundamental problem using the GPL. Minor changes, like the one made for libcygwin.a, would have been sufficient for the purpose of making Cygwin32 useful for commercial projects. In any case, Cygnus could have chosen to use a weaker license -- a license like the X11 license. The big change with the new license is that the cygwin source code is not free, and contributors are on thin ice if they think they can use it for their own commercial purposes. There is a basic distinction between commercial and proprietary software. http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/categories.html#CommercialSoftware http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/selling.html - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".