RE: Cygwin32 Press Release 1/21/97

["Grant Leslie" <grantl at deerinet dot nb dot ca>]

> A legal sidebar:
> 
>     I've read GPL and LGPL and it's hard to say what the legal
>     ramification are.  It's too bad we can't all afford lawyers.
>     One thing I know, you can't distribute groff binaries as some
>     people have already done.  Remember that all cygwin32 binaries
>     contain crt0, which is GPL.  If you distribute it, you must
>     distribute it's source.  I for one don't want to liable for
>     distributing all of cygwin32 source just to include a binary
>     with it's source.  Remember GPL (instead of LGPL) causes as
>     much problem for _freeware_ code as is does for commercial.
>     (I suspect that you could distribute commercial binaries on
>     CD with cygwin32, if you included all cygwin32 source.)
> 

	I was under the impression that the sources had only need "be made
availible" should someone want them..?? I can certainly tell people
where I got the source, ( and did when asked ) or even make availible
the exact ones I used. And also the sources for Cygwin32 is readily
availible.
	Basically I would like to know if I should just pull off the
binaries I have posted, or if I am required to place the sources on
the same server to remain "legal"???? If I must include the sources
for crt0 and cygwin.dll on the server, then I'm afraid the gnu-win32
directory must just be removed altogether :(. I am the administrator
for the site and would truely hate place things of questionable
legality on on my site!!! And posting just what I did ( since it
created much more traffic than I expected ) is almost too much extra
traffic for what is really just a personal "learning" hobby of my
own... If ANYONE from Cygnus could comment on this I'd love to hear
from them?
	I remember reading that the GNU-Win32 ( or whatever it's name ends
up being ) tools etc.. would always be availible for free, however in
a "beta" form without support beyond this mailing list. If this is
the case, then just exactly what would be required to distribute
binaries created with these "free" tools, assuming no charge was made
for those binaries created? Would the "beta" have different licenses
placed on it than the "commercial" version of them?
	As a "casual" user of these tools, that is someone who doesn't
intend to make any profit from using this, I would really like to
know what legal responsibilities I would have if I wanted to share
what I create?? Since basically just anyone with net access could
download the tools, I hope Cygnus has placed some sort of thought in
this direction, or I may grudgingly have to remove all traces of it
from my hard drive :-(
	

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