Re: [Patch]: Changes to how-programming.texinfo
On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 11:53:22AM -0700, Max Kaehn wrote: On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 14:30 -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote: IMO, if we need additional wording about licensing, it should reference the web site. I'm concerned about that FAQ entry giving incomplete information And, I'm always concerned about people who can't find any information unless it is in in the FAQ. it's very clear about the default case of the GPL, but it doesn't mention the exceptions in the Cygwin license. Would this work? I'd rather not refer to this as exceptions to the GPL requirement. I think that something along the lines of: Before you begin, note that Cygwin is licensed under the GNU GPL (as indeed are all other Cygwin-based libraries). That means that if your code links against the cygwin dll (and if your program is calling functions from Cygwin, it must, as a matter of fact, be linked against it), and you are distributing binaries, the GPL, in general, applies to your source as well. See http://cygwin.com/licensing.html for more details about the GPL and Cygwin's use of it. would be preferable. I'd like to get Corinna's take on this, however, and that won't be happening for a week or so. cgf
Re: [Patch]: Changes to how-programming.texinfo
On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 15:08 -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote: On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 11:53:22AM -0700, Max Kaehn wrote: I'm concerned about that FAQ entry giving incomplete information And, I'm always concerned about people who can't find any information unless it is in in the FAQ. Think of how much time it could save you to not have to answer questions about contradictions between the FAQ and the Cygwin license. :-) I'd rather not refer to this as exceptions to the GPL requirement. I think that something along the lines of: Before you begin, note that Cygwin is licensed under the GNU GPL (as indeed are all other Cygwin-based libraries). That means that if your code links against the cygwin dll (and if your program is calling functions from Cygwin, it must, as a matter of fact, be linked against it), and you are distributing binaries, the GPL, in general, applies to your source as well. See http://cygwin.com/licensing.html for more details about the GPL and Cygwin's use of it. would be preferable. I'd like to get Corinna's take on this, however, and that won't be happening for a week or so. Sounds good.
Re: [Patch]: Changes to how-programming.texinfo
On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 12:25:35PM -0700, Max Kaehn wrote: On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 15:08 -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote: On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 11:53:22AM -0700, Max Kaehn wrote: I'm concerned about that FAQ entry giving incomplete information And, I'm always concerned about people who can't find any information unless it is in in the FAQ. Think of how much time it could save you to not have to answer questions about contradictions between the FAQ and the Cygwin license. :-) Since there isn't any contradiction in the cygwin license that isn't really an issue. The FAQ is not the definitive source of all knowledge about Cygwin. Btw, the other license provision in the cygwin licensing web page was really meant as a way to accommodate other, already existing projects. It wasn't intended to allow people to say Hmm. My cygwin program is done. Now I wonder what kind of open source license I should use. There is nothing in the language to preclude this usage, however. cgf
Re: [Patch]: Changes to how-programming.texinfo
Christopher Faylor wrote: Btw, the other license provision in the cygwin licensing web page was really meant as a way to accommodate other, already existing projects. And it was very gracious of them to do that. For an example of why this makes life a lot easier, consider MySQL (GPL) and OpenSSL (BSD). Now, the MySQL license has an OpenSSL exemption which means it's fine to link MySQL binaries against OpenSSL without forcing OpenSSL to the GPL. But, most GPL projects use the standard GPL with no execeptions. This means that if your distro packages ssl-enabled MySQL packages, including libmysqlclient, then using -lmysqlclient with your pure-GPL program violates a license because it pulls in the BSD OpenSSL code. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=283786 http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=6924 MySQL at some point figured out what kind of hell a widely used library that is only licensed under pure GPL could cause, and added their FLOSS exception which lists a number of acceptable licenses that can be used as an exception, much like Cygwin. http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/foss-exception.html But I think that was a relatively new thing, and until recently most distros were stuck with the prehistoric 3.23 version of mysql due to its libmysqlclient being the last LGPL version available. I presume this was done so that e.g. BSD-licensed programs can still use -lmysqlclient. This really hurt MySQL adoption though because if the vast majority of the world is still using 3.x then you really can't write software that depends on the great features in 4.0 and 4.1 or even 5.0. Last I checked RHEL and FC were *still* packaging this ancient version as their default, though that might have finally changed in RHEL4 and FC4, I don't know. Brian (sorry for the semi-off-topic rant.)
Re: [Patch]: Changes to how-programming.texinfo
On 7/15/05, Brian Dessent wrote: Christopher Faylor wrote: Btw, the other license provision in the cygwin licensing web page was really meant as a way to accommodate other, already existing projects. So do we want to change the wording at all? Last I checked RHEL and FC were *still* packaging this ancient version as their default, though that might have finally changed in RHEL4 and FC4, I don't know. They have, and even with RHEL3 it was pretty easy to download and install the RPMs from MySQL.com, though you needed to keep on top of security updates yourself. And, since we're having off-topic discussions, I'm now a father: http://joshuadf.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_joshuadf_archive.html
