Making and selling a Cygwin distribution

["David Christensen" <dpchrist at holgerdanske dot com>]

I wrote:
> I'm curious -- why would you want to install Cygwin on GNU/Linux when
> most GNU/Linux distributions already include GNU tools?

William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> I don't :-). I want to install it on my GTW WIN2K box from the Linux
> box, since the WIN2K box has no internet access, & thus setup.exe
> can't work in its usual way of going to the web for the cygwin files
> to install :-).

It sounds like what you really want is a downloadable ISO image.  I'm pretty
sure there is no such thing, at least not "official" and "free" (Cygnus
Solutions and Red Hat have sold Cygwin in various forms over the years,
currently http://www.redhat.com/software/cygwin/).  The Cygwin Setup FAQ item #1
is pretty explicit that setup.exe is the only supported means for getting and
installing "free" Cygwin:

    http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.setup.html#faq.setup.setup


That said, I figured out how to create my own Cygwin distribution CD using an
Internet-connected Windows machine:

1.  I create the directory C:\cygwin\setup.

2.  I download setup.exe into the above directory.

3.  I run setup.exe, configure it to use the above directory as the
    Local Package Directory, and download the packages I want.

4.  I run setup.exe again and install the packages.

5.  I copy everything in C:\cygwin\setup to a distribution folder and
    burn it to CD.

6.  As time goes on and I download/install more packages, I repeat step
    #5 when I want to make a new distribution CD.


To use the distribution CD to install Cygwin on another Windows machine:

1.  I create the directory C:\cygwin\setup.

2.  I copy the contents of the distribution CD to the above directory.

3.  I run setup.exe and tell it to install from local directory.


I've wondered if it is permissible to make and sell a Cygwin distribution (CD,
DVD, downloadable ISO, etc.).  Looking at the Cygwin license page:

    http://www.cygwin.com/licensing.html

I think so (because the GPL allows you to do that), but I'm not a lawyer.
Google'ing cygwin.com for "distribution" yielded many hits.  This one reminds me
that I would need to include sources:

    http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/1999-03/msg00233.html

Does anybody on the list know the current "authoritative" answer for making and
selling a Cygwin distribution?


TIA,

David


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/