Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com From: "Gerald S. Williams" To: Subject: RE: GPL Violation Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:33:30 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20030220174819.00f33a08@mail.earthlink.net> Robert Citek wrote: > Lawyer? Three years? We don't even have funds to buy pizza and beer let > alone a lawyer. We are not in the software distribution business. > That's what Red Hat is for. That is why I buy and recommend Red Hat. Disclaimer: IANAL RedHat uses the option whereby you can download the source and binaries at the same time if you wish. Otherwise, you could go to them and ask for the exact source to every version of every package ever published in the last three years, and they'd be required to produce it (assuming they have source code control, they probably could do that anyway, though). That is the best option, since it frees you up from having to maintain source code for every binary you release and provide it to anyone willing to pay you for the cost of distribution. On the other hand, if you're distributing a CD, keeping the corresponding sources for three years shouldn't be THAT MUCH of a burden--just burn an extra CD set with GPL'ed sources. I doubt many people will request them when they could just get the newest version online, but what about that 1% that cgf referred to? This really can be important. Companies may come to depend on that software, and run into some freakish bug when trying to install a network driver or something. Only when they try to get the latest version from cygwin.com will they discover that their app is in that 1% that is no longer supported. They're not going to balk about spending $100 or more for you to copy it for them. If they're looking for sources, they're planning to devote a great deal more (in terms of time) in order to get themselves back on their feet. And after 3 years, you could raise that price to $1000 or more (again IANAL). :-) The problem with the GPL is that it's too often misunderstood, especially by the people who claim to espouse it. E-mails from addresses like angry AT militant DOT linux DOT commando DOT org threatening legal action against people who are just trying to contribute to open source efforts don't help. They just spread at least as much FUD as Microsoft is regularly accused of. But I think this thread shows that the GPL isn't really that burdensome. There is another side to this issue: the fact that RedHat is not in the business of supporting a standalone cygwin1.DLL, although there are people who would prefer to include them rather than requiring you to install Cygwin. I'm not ready to touch that one quite yet, though... -Jerry -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/