Cygnus Cygwin32 Press Release 1/21/97

[dwight@wse.com]

I had initially sent this via private mail rather than to the mailing
list, but since everyone's doing it here's my two cents worth:

Hmmm,  now that I think about this I think that I'm confused.  If
Cygwin32 is under the GPL, then I don't see how Cygnus can relieve
end-users of the GPL requirement that they make the appropriate source
available.

If Cygwin32 is under the LGPL (which seems to be the appropiate choice
IMHO), then no one would actually need a license to use it in a
proprietary program anyway.  Of course it might be worthwhile to pay
Cygnus some fee to act an intermediary for those requesting the
Cygwin32 source.

I guess if Cygnus actually wrote the entire thing with nothing derived
from GPL source that this would make sense.  But if this is what is
going on, then Cygnus should make an unambiguous statement to this
effect.  For better or worse Cygnus is so closely associated with the
FSF, that people dont expect them to be holding a non-GPL version in
their back pocket (a la Ghostscript).

Note that if this is what is going on, that I'm not saying it is
wrong.  I'm just saying that Cygnus should make things absolutely
crystal clear.


Dwight Shih


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Geoffrey Noer writes:
 > Greetings,
 > 
 > Following is a copy of the recent Cygwin32 press release made on Jan 21,
 > 1997.  Of particular note is the fact that Cygnus will be selling
 > commercial licenses for Cygwin32 in the first half of 1997.  This means
 > that companies wishing to use the Cygwin32 library in proprietary programs
 > will be able to do so with a license from Cygnus.  Cygnus will continue
 > to provide public releases under the GPL for those people using the library
 > in conjunction with the development of free software.
 > 
 > I will send more detailed information to the lists as it becomes available.
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