Message-ID: <48D992E8.1080801@byu.net>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:07:52 -0600
From: Eric Blake <ebb9 AT byu DOT net>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com, barrysmith DOT sourcelink AT gmail DOT com
Subject: Re: Problem to open big selfextracting Zip files from bash - Multiple  Environment discussion
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According to Barry Smith at SourceLink on 9/23/2008 10:00 AM:
> First,
> 
> LIST: I apologize for hurting anyone's feelings.
>       Charles has decided to respond in a not-so-receptive tone because I
> use RAR in my CygWIN scripts, and Charles 
>         (apparently) feels that using NON-CygWIN-distributed tools in CygWIN
> should not be allowed.

You seem to have missed the point.  We agree that there is nothing
technically stopping you from using RAR: yes, you can copy a rar
implementation into your cygwin directory, and like any other non-cygwin
program, invoke it programatically from cygwin scripts.  The point is that
rar is non-free software - it is patent and license encumbered, and as
such, will not be made part of the official cygwin release, not because it
isn't technically possible, but because it is not legally possible.

>       I also dual-boot Windows AND Linux.  I guess that I'm the most evil
> person in the world, now.

Dual booting does not make you evil (but top-posting, full-quoting, and
quoting raw email addresses from mail headers are all good candidates,
since they violate list policy, and you have already done all three,
repeatedly).

> Hmmm... I guess (in your vision) OpenSource has no purpose in CygWIN... I
> guess that's an opinion... Rather narrow, but it's an opinion.

Wrong.  Cygwin is ALL about open source - everything on the cygwin site
comes with source code, and is thus open for you to recompile or modify.
But more important than open source is the freedom to do things with that
source.  Whether or not rar is free (as in beer) has no bearing - the
point that we are making is that rar is NOT free (as in speech) - we are
not legally permitted to link it with cygwin1.dll.  Thus, any further
discussions about the technical merits of the rar file format, whether or
not they are good arguments, are off-topic for this list.

> 
> I also wonder why you feel that anything that runs under CygWIN must be
> distributed by CygWIN.

You are mistaken.  We don't feel that way.  As part of your freedom (as in
speech) inherent in using cygwin, you may place whatever you would like in
your cygwin directory structure.  Just don't expect us to support it, or
to care about your rants about how amazing your programs are, if they were
not downloaded from cygwin.com.  In other words, telling us about winrar
is a waste of our time, since it does not pertain to the charter of this
mailing list.  Nothing against your program, per se, but against your
choice of audience.

>  By extension of this idea, Do you also believe that
> CygWIN "owns" all of the CygWIN scripts that I write, that parse my Windows
> directories and log selected WINDOWS files that I use with OpenSource
> utilities that run under Windows (the same operating system that CygWIN
> couldn't execute without).

No, the GPL does not mean that cygwin.com owns your modifications.  In
fact, it means the exact opposite - it means you have the freedom to make
modifications without having to tell us about it, so long as you in turn
give those freedoms to others (and even then, only if you choose to
exercise the freedom of redistributing your modifications).

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             ebb9 AT byu DOT net
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