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From: "Ralf Habacker" <Ralf DOT Habacker AT freenet DOT de>
To: "Cygwin-Apps" <cygwin-apps AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: IPC stuff
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 14:06:52 +0200
Message-ID: <005901c13603$3fbf0690$651c440a@BRAMSCHE>
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Hi,
I'm surprised about the fast contact to the original author, as yesterday we
have discussed this.
I like to ask how do you have got contact to Ludovic LANGE.

Ralf
>
> Ludovic LANGE schrieb am 2001-09-05, 1:32:
> >Gerrit P. Haase wrote:
> >
> >>Hi Mr. Lange,
> >>
> >>i want to ask if you are the one who wrote the cygipc stuff?
> >>
> >>There is a heavy discussion at cygwin-apps list how it is
> >>possible to include your ipc code into cygwin.
> >>Because you own the copyright and redhat (which owns cygwin)
> >>distributes the cygwin kernel under BOTH GPL and a proprietary
> >>license, there are some problems to reuse the code.
> >>
> >>I would like to invite you to look at this thread which starts at
> >>2001-09-02 and you find the archives here:
> >>http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2001-09/
> >>
> >>If you are the one who wrote the ipc code, please make a statement
> >>if it is reusable for cygwin or not.
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>
> >>Gerrit P. Haase
> =======
> >Hello Gerrit,
> >
> >You're right, I'm one of the two that worked on the cygipc layer of
> >cygwin32. I'll speak for myself of course, but be assured that my former
> >colleague shared the same points of view on the subject, we already had
> >some discussion on it at that time.
> >
> >I've just looked to some of the posts of the thread you mentionned, and
> >for what I saw, the main problems that you discovered are the right ones.
> >
> >Here is a little summary :
> >
> >- In my previous employment, I was working on the port of an Unix
> >application. When evaluating cygwin32 as a mean for this port, we
> >quickly found out that it was lacking the IPC functionnality we were
> >using. We decided to *quickly* and *dirtily* (!) implement the missing
> >functionnalities to compile and test our port. My colleague and I took a
> >Windows Kernel Reference Book and the IPC implementation of the Linux
> >Kernel (v2.0 if I remember well), and we started mixing both to get an
> >IPC implementation.
> >This implementation wasn't efficient nor bug-free, but it was enough to
> >test our application. We corrected a few bugs, changed the compilation
> >process, and there only were 1 or 2 versions that were internally released.
> >So, at the beginning, this was an internal tool.
> >- As we were happy with cygwin, the free software world, and the open
> >source world in general, we decided we could contribute back this piece
> >of code to Cygwin community that was so kind with us (bug hunt, etc...)
> >So we packaged it quickly, put it on our corporate server, and
> >advertised it a little on cygwin mailing lists. At this time, we were
> >unaware of the licensing issues, and not very familiar with licenses. We
> >knew that the IPC code from Linux was copyrighted, and our added value
> >was 'only' to put the bits together. So I think we put some copyright
> >notice somewhere in the docs, mainly to include an email address. If I
> >remember correctly, cygwin was licensed only under one license at that time.
> >- A few times and releases after, we were approached by one responsible
> >of the cygwin project who kindly asked us to license our code in a way
> >that would allow its use in cygwin. We were ok with that, and did what
> >we could do to comply. We choosed to license it under the GPL, and it
> >required us to 1) have an agreement from our employer that the code
> >could be used and 2) that we made a copyright assignement to the FSF. We
> >had the agreement of our employer, but the problem with the copyright
> >assignement came from the fact that, as it included code from the Linux
> >Kernel, we would have to ask every authors their agreement, which we
> >couldn't do.
> >So the situation stayed as it was : We distributed a piece of code with
> >many bits coming from an open source project, without particular
> >licensing attached to it.
> >- Meanwhile, the project we were working on was discontinued, my
> >colleague and I left the company and lost our email account, and I
> >gradually forgot about this piece of software.
> >
> >So the situation is not easy, as you can see : I can make all the
> >statements you need, concerning the code I wrote, but cannot speak in
> >place of the Linux Kernel developers.
> >
> >I really think the solution would be to start again from scratch another
> >implementation, as was suggested. The way we did it was quick and dirty,
> >the goals weren't to have production systems running on it but only to
> >run prototypes. So the internal design (if there is any) may not be
> >adequate for the cygwin project.
> >
> >As far as I'm concerned, I don't think the "contamination" (people who
> >already know the code) is an issue : As long as it is a rewrite, it
> >should be accepted as such. Of course, people will benefit from their
> >experience on the code, and it will help not to make the same mistakes
> >again. The key issues here are to not 'copy and paste' code, but produce
> >new one instead, even if it's inspired from old one. Did you ever write
> >a program, and, after a disk failure / diskette error / source loss, had
> >to rewrite it ? It's new code, but inspired from an old version. And in
> >general, it's better than the original code when you start from scratch
> >again.
> >
> >Concerning me, I won't be able to help with cygwin : I've stopped
> >working on it since a few years, and I unfortunately don't have enough
> >time to set up a new development environment, work on it, be involved,
> >etc... That's too bad because I was enjoying it, but I'm working hard
> >for the moment, and I'm involved in other projects with so little free
> >time...
> >
> >I sincerely hope that these issues will find a solution : IPC is (was ?)
> >the missing point in cygwin, and products like postgresql neede this
> >badly to be able to run on an NT platform.
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >Ludovic LANGE.
> >
> >PS - You can use this email in public forums, mailing-lists, etc..
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> =^..^=
>