RE: Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

["Williams, Gerald S \(Jerry\)" <gsw@agere.com>]

mwoehlke wrote:
> So... are we just disagreeing over "safe", or are you
> actually telling me that RH (and thus Cygwin) would
> *refuse* to incorporate public domain code?

In fact that is the case, and it is a shame.

In RH's defense, there is some legal vagueness around
public domain code (and a few strange laws that add to
the confusion by trying to accommodate shareware and
such). But one would think that as a huge proponent of
open source development, RH lawyers would have figured
it out by now.

I suspect that anyone could theoretically take public
domain code and add their copyright to it (therefore
it could be submitted to RH), but IANAL, and I won't
be the first to try it. (Not that I could if I wanted
to--my company lawyers won't sign the assignment.) Of
course, this assumes that RH's sole purpose is making
sure they can legitimately use the code--if their real
purpose is making sure nobody else can use it (except
under GPL), then this wouldn't serve their purposes.

> The irony of course is that the availability of a
> commercial license makes it look like Daryl's fears
> are in fact very well founded. :-)

I don't care if they want to make money, but their
current policy actually prevents code from being
released into the public domain. Even if their real
motivation is not monetary, that is a consequence
that I'd rather avoid.

gsw