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Re: [RFC] apache-cygwin licensing conflicts


On Tue, May 18, 1999 at 11:38:40PM +0200, Stipe Tolj wrote:
>this is a request for comments on the issue of integrating our apache
>port to the official Apache Group distribution. I'm currently dealing
>with the guys from apache.org to add our cygwin patch to their
>distribution.
>
>At least adding the patch to the source distribution would not violate
>any of both -- cygwin nor apache -- licensing agreements since the
>cygwin license only applies for binaries, is that right?
>
>Unfortunatly any binary distrbution would ether violate the cygwin or
>apache license, since both _would_ apply to the binary.
>
>Someone of you "officials" at Cygnus has stated that Cygnus may grand
>flexible privilidges at least for special purposes or occations for the
>cygwin library license. Since apache is an huge and accepted project and
>we would allow Win32 based users to use a posix complatible apache
>version beside the commercial Win32 native MSVC version this would be a
>great opportunity.
>
>May it be possible -- regarding Cygnus officials side -- to grand a more
>flexible and compatible licensing term to be able to fully support the
>cygwin platform within the apache official distrbution?

Here's a copy of the CYGWIN_LICENSE that will be showing up in B21.
Hopefully, it answers your questions.

I don't know if you are planning on distributing a cygwin DLL.  If you
are then the GPL applies.  You must supply or be willing to supply
the version of the sources that were used to build the cygwin DLL you
are distributing.

cgf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

			*** NOTE ***

In accordance with section 10 of the GPL, Cygnus permits programs whose
sources are distributed under a license that complies with the Open
Source(tm) definition to be linked with libcygwin.a without libcygwin.a
itself causing the resulting program to be covered by the GNU GPL.

This means that you can port an Open Source(tm) application to cygwin,
and distribute that executable as if it didn't include a copy of
libcygwin.a linked into it.  Note that this does not apply to the cygwin
DLL itself.  If you distribute a (possibly modified) version of the DLL
you must adhere to the terms of the GPL, i.e., you must provide sources
for the cygwin DLL.

See http://www.opensource.org/osd.html for the precise Open Source
Definition referenced above.

If you have questions about any of the above or would like to arrange
for other licensing terms, please contact Cygnus using information given
below:

     Cygnus Solutions
     1325 Chesapeake Terrace
     Sunnyvale, CA 94089
     USA

     +1 408 542 9600
     hotline: +1 408 542 9601
     email: `info@cygnus.com'
     fax: +1 408 542 9699

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