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Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 11:41:56 -0500
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: mingw path/mount handling code (Was: Re: Practical method for automatic Cygwin install?)
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On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 08:29:06AM -0800, Brian Dessent wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>I think there is very small chance of that.  IIRC, some of that code is
>>straight out of the cygwin DLL itself.
>>
>>I think that anyone who had studied the cygwin path handling code would
>>have a tough time proving that there was no "taintedness" if they tried
>>to produce a library under a different license.
>
>Crud.  Well I suppose from a code reuse standpoint it would still make
>sense to factor out that stuff so that setup and cygcheck (and anything
>else GPL) can share it.

Remember that cygcheck and strace are already sharing the code in
path.cc.  It's not clear to me what more needs to be done except
possibly handle symlinks.

>But without a relicensed version it still means that 3PPs that want to
>gracefully distribute Cygwin stuff have to write all the mount table
>stuff themselves (or run /bin/mount, which I guess is the mantra
>anyway.)

...or run cygpath.

FWIW, the basic problem with Red Hat these days is getting them to pay
any attention to cygwin at all.  The corporate VP in legal who used to
be at least somewhat responsive to my cygwin queries has moved on to
other concerns within the company and, from what I've heard, no one else
seems inclined to answer questions.  You know that cygwin runs on Windoze
(or is it Window$?) after all.

So, even if there was a chance that someone in Red Hat could make the
recommendation to release the path.cc source code under a "looser"
license, it is extremely unlikely that you could get an official
corporate response on the matter.

What fun.

cgf

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