> On Jun 2, Jim Pick wrote > > The cygwin.dll case in an example where the GPL is being used to restrict the > > rights of other people using the code so that they can't do something taboo > > such as charge money, while at the same time, reserving the right for the > > authors to do the exact same thing. To me, this is clearly hypocritical, > > and I don't consider that software to be as 'free' as it could otherwise > > be. > > First off, this list isn't the right forum to discuss Cygnus morality > issues. Can someone point out a better forum? I'm not saying that they're being immoral. I don't think they have properly addressed the issues though. Maybe that means they would be open to releasing the cygwin.dll under the LGPL in addition to the GPL and their proprietary license. > Second, I find it hard to conceive of some case wher Cygnus would > sue someone for selling commercial software which happened to use > a DLL authored by Cygnus. It would trash their (Cygnus's) reputation, > and eat into their bottom line. Cygnus has made it clear that they intend to make money off of cygwin32. How aggressively they do that, I don't know. > Third, I think you're (Jim, I mean) making a mountain out of a mole hill. Perhaps. Cygnus hasn't released enough information for me to decide whether it is a mountain or a mole hill. I hope it's a mole hill. Just so you understand why I'm so interested - I'm working on porting dpkg to cygwin32. That way, we'll be able to host the entire Debian distribution on top of Windows 95 and Windows NT (at least the stuff that will port). It would just be another Debian port, like PowerPC, Sparc or Alpha. This could potentially be a really big thing. :-) Little licensing details could really come back to haunt us. Imagine if everybody that wanted to make a non-free application that ran on top of Debian GNU/Win32 had to pay Cygnus a licensing fee. Imagine if Microsoft demanded that everybody had to use a certain license in order to run on top of their operating system. > Can't we talk about something more interesting? This is interesting! :-) (Nobody's forcing you to read this thread) Cheers, - Jim
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