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Re: GNU Win32? Not anymore.

On Thu, Jul 10, 1997 at 06:19:19PM -0400, Shaya Potter wrote:
> 
> I agree, but, if the GPL is considered "free" enough for libraries, this
> new license is "free'er".  Put it this way, under the GPL, everybody would
> have to put their code under the GPL.  Under this license, you don't have
> too, unless you're in competition.  However, they don't say what the
> license is, if you are in competition with them.  If that's GPL'd then
> what's the problem.  i.e. if they say the software is LGPL'd for normal
> use, but if the use is deemed to be in competition with them, than they
> are operating under the GPL.  Is that legal?

I'm confused as to why the license status of the compiler
really changes much; the announcement implies that now you can use
Cygwin32 for any project, GPL or not; but the GPL says nothing
about the output of GPL programs anyway. Otherwise,
I would have to release all my graphs from gnuplot as GPL!?
This just changes your license to modify Cygwin32 itself.

I must be cofnused, because the opposite is implied
in the announcement itself, and I would expect Cygnus to understand the GPL.


Hamish
> 
> Just wondering,
> 
> Shaya
> 
> > 
> > ------- Forwarded Message
> > 
> > Subject: Revised Cygwin32 licensing terms
> > To: gnu-win32@cygnus.com
> > Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 16:58:37 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: gordoni@cygnus.com (Gordon Irlam)
> > 
> > We have revised the licensing terms on Cygwin32.  Previously Cygwin32 was
> > licensed under the GPL.  This restricted the use of Cygwin32 in proprietary
> > software.  The new license allows Cygwin32 to be used in both free and
> > proprietary software, except by direct competitors of Cygnus.
> > 
> > Details of the new license are available from the GNU Win32 home page:
> > 
> >     http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/
> > 
> > We haven't yet built a new release, but when we do, we will be incorporating
> > the new licensing terms into it.
> > 
> > It has been tricky for us to figure out the details of the Cygwin32 license.
> > This is because Cygwin32 includes both a set of applications, and a set of
> > library code developers include with the code they have written.  The
> > original license for Cygwin32 was the FSF Library GPL.  However, we found the
> > Library GPL went to far in enabling Cygnus' business competitors to take and
> > benefit from the work we had performed on Cygwin32, without contributing
> > anything back in return.  As a result we decided to switch to licensing
> > Cygwin32 under the GPL.  Unfortunately, we then found a lot of people who
> > would otherwise have been interested in using Cygwin32 were unwilling to do
> > so, because they were not willing to license their code under the GPL.  We
> > are now attempting to find a balance somewhere between the two previous
> > licenses we tried.
> > 
> > The new licensing terms for Cygwin32 permits anyone to make use of Cygwin32
> > without adhering to the GPL, and without being required to make their
> > sources available, provided that in so doing they are not attempting to
> > directly compete with Cygnus.  The reason we decided it was necessary to
> > prevent the use of Cygwin32 by companies that are competing directly with
> > Cygnus is explained below.
> > 
> > Cygnus specializes in the provision of development tools for embedded
> > systems. Cygnus is responsible for perhaps 80% of all on going GCC
> > development, and 95% of all GDB development.  We commercialize our
> > development efforts through our GNUPro compiler tool chain.  Other people and
> > organizations contribute to, and benefits from our work.
> > 
> > We have found that some of our embedded systems competitors have taken the
> > work we have publically released and then are using it to compete directly
> > with us.  These companies typically do not contribute back to the ongoing
> > development of GCC.  Several examples follow.  Taos Systems uses GCC as the
> > compiler for their embedded operating system, but are not involved in the
> > ongoing maintenance of GCC, and haven't made any of the modifications they
> > have made to GCC publicly available.  Wind River, a major embedded systems
> > developer, with a market valuation of around $1100m, makes heavy uses of the
> > GNU tools including GCC, and even has a proprietary graphical front end to
> > GDB (that has been designed in such a way as to get around the GPL), but
> > they currently don't contribute anything to the ongoing development of any
> > of GCC and GDB tools.  Tao Mountain (unrelated to Taos Systems) did a port of
> > GCC for IDT to the IDT MIPS R5000, but have never merged their sources back
> > with the FSF.  We find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage relative to
> > these companies because these companies manage to avoid the software
> > development costs Cygnus has to pay.
> > 
> > We want to make Cygwin32 widely available, because we want to maximum number
> > of people that have access to it, and are able to extend and modify it.  We
> > believe that doing this will improve Cygwin32 both in terms of its quality
> > and features, and you are encouraged to return any changes you make to
> > Cygwin32 to Cygnus for inclusion in a future release.  On the other hand we
> > feel our direct competitors in the embedded tools space should not be able
> > to take Cygwin32, which we developed, and use it to compete directly with
> > us.  We hope the new Cygwin32 licensing terms will meet our goals.
> > 
> > 
> >                                              Gordon Irlam
> >                                              (gordoni@cygnus.com)
> >                                              Technical Product Manager
> >                                              Cygnus Solutions
> > - -
> > For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
> > "gnu-win32-request@cygnus.com" with one line of text: "help".
> > 
> > ------- End of Forwarded Message
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
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-- 
Hamish Moffatt, StudIEAust                    moffatt@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au
Student, computer science & computer systems engineering.    3rd year, RMIT.
http://hamish.home.ml.org/ (PGP key here)             CPOM: [*****     ] 50%
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.  --Bohr


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