This is the mail archive of the cygwin-apps@cygwin.com mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: Packaging O'Caml


Wow, this is amazing.  In all of the years that you've been following cygwin
in the mailing list, this is the first time you've ever read the licensing
page?

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 02:46:55PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:
>>Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>>>However, parts of it are released under the "Q Public license", which
>>>GNU lists explicitly as non-GPL-compatible.  Does this mean an
>>>automatic "no" to an official Cygwin package [...] ?
>>
>>From http://cygwin.com/licensing.html: In accordance with section 10 of
>>the GPL, Red Hat permits programs whose sources are distributed under a
>>license that complies with the Open Source definition to be linked with
>>libcygwin.a without libcygwin.a itself causing the resulting program to
>>be covered by the GNU GPL.
>
>Interestingly enough, this doesn't mention cygwin1.dll, only
>libcygwin.a, but I may be nitpicking...

Or, you may be missing the point.  When that sentence was written you
couldn't do something like "gcc -o foo foo.c /bin/cygwin1.dll".  You
had to "gcc -o foo foo.c -lcygwin".

The act of linking something with your program is part of what causes
the GPL to become active.  Including pieces from libcygwin.a into your
program is part of what exercises the GPL.

Other methods of linking are not covered by this generous exception.

>> IANAL, but the Q Public License is listed on the OSI web page, so there
>> don't appear to be any legal restrictions -- some Cygwin packages use
>> different open source licenses already.
>>
>> Or have there been policy changes for new Cygwin packages that I'm not
>> aware of?
>
>What threw me off was this sentense on the GNU GPL licensing page
>(<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html>):
>
>	Since the QPL is incompatible with the GNU GPL, you cannot take a
>	GPL-covered program and QPL-covered program and link them
>	together, no matter how.

Since cygwin has an exception to the GPL, this section is potentially
irrelevant.

>However, it seems I didn't read the document carefully enough, as it goes
>on to say
>
>	However, if you have written a program that uses QPL-covered
>	library (called FOO), and you want to release your program under
>	the GNU GPL, you can easily do that. You can resolve the conflict
>	for your program by adding a notice like this to it:
>
>	  As a special exception, you have permission to link this program
>	  with the FOO library and distribute executables, as long as you
>	  follow the requirements of the GNU GPL in regard to all of the
>	  software in the executable aside from FOO.
>
>which is almost exactly what you quoted from the Cygwin licensing page.
>So I guess we're ok.  As soon as I work out the packaging bugs, I'll ITP
>O'Caml.

No, it is not the same thing.  The exception in the cygwin licensing
allows other licenses to still have effect as long as they adhere to
the open source definitions mentioned.  The GPL doesn't trump these
licenses, although if you adhere to the GPL, then that's all the
better.

cgf


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]