Cygnus used in a Product ?

Cygnus used in a Product ?

[desh]

Anybody,

Anyone aware of any commercial application ported from UNIX to NT using
Cygnus ?
I would appreciate suggestion/Issues and experience related to porting a
commercial Unix based product on Windows NT.

thanks

-desh




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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Claus Brod]

desh wrote:
> Anybody,
> 
> Anyone aware of any commercial application ported from UNIX to NT using
> Cygnus ?
> I would appreciate suggestion/Issues and experience related to porting a
> commercial Unix based product on Windows NT.

I'm not a licensing expert, but the license for the gnuwin32 stuff
sounds as if you are required to ship source code for your app if it is
based on gnuwin32 - I don't think that's acceptable for most commercial
applications. But maybe I'm completely wrong on the licensing agreement?

--claus_brod@hp.com-----------------------------------------------------
  Claus Brod, CoCreate Software    Have you hugged your manager today?
  CoCreate Software GmbH
  A Hewlett-Packard Company        Phone: +49 7031 951 152
-- http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/3366 ---#include <disclaimer>--
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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Fergus Henderson]

Claus Brod <claus_brod@bbn.hp.com> writes:

>desh wrote:
>> Anyone aware of any commercial application ported from UNIX to NT using
>> Cygnus ?
>> I would appreciate suggestion/Issues and experience related to porting a
>> commercial Unix based product on Windows NT.
>
>I'm not a licensing expert, but the license for the gnuwin32 stuff
>sounds as if you are required to ship source code for your app if it is
>based on gnuwin32 - I don't think that's acceptable for most commercial
>applications. But maybe I'm completely wrong on the licensing agreement?

Yes, you're wrong.

You don't need to ship source code unless your app is a "derivative work"
of the DLL, and if it just uses that standard POSIX interfaces it won't be.

Disclaimer: I do not represent Cygnus, I am not a lawyer,
this is not legal advice, yadda yadda yadda...

 | From fjh Fri Aug  8 19:00:24 1997
 | Subject: Re: [gnu-win32@cygnus.com] Revised licensing terms
 | To: win32@lists.debian.org (win32)
 | Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 19:00:24 +1000 (EST)
 | In-Reply-To: <m0wwEHJ-00IdTiC@golem.pixar.com> from Bruce Perens at "Aug 6, 97 03:10:00 pm"
 | 
 | > As long as they use a straight GPL as one of their licenses all of the
 | > tools will be OK with us, and only the library a problem. We could still
 | > work on a GLIBC 2.0 based library if we wished an LGPL platform.
 | 
 | There should be no need for that.  As far as I can see, commercial
 | software can still use cygwin.dll, so long as it is not a derivative
 | work.  And since cygwin.dll just provides a standard POSIX interface,
 | it would be very hard for Cygnus to argue that a commercial application
 | that made use of it was a derivative work.  (A Cygnus employee said as
 | much on the cygwin mailing list.)  Linking with the beta18 libcygwin.a
 | should be fine too, because they've declared that we can use beta18
 | under the terms of the Cygwin Licence, which basically says that
 | libcygwin.a can be used by anyone without any conditions applying.
 | 
 | Thus the only thing we need to do is to continue to provide a version
 | of libcygwin.a that can be used with commercial software and that
 | works with future releases of cygwin.dll.  Even that may be unnecessary.
 | 
 | Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, yadda yadda yadda...

--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: < http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh >   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Claus Brod]

> Yes, you're wrong.

Good news!

> You don't need to ship source code unless your app is a "derivative work"
> of the DLL, and if it just uses that standard POSIX interfaces it won't be.

In other words, as long as I just use the Cygwin32 DLL(s) along with the
header files to compile and link my application, I can distribute my
application along with the Cygwin32 DLLs (plus maybe the sources for the
DLLs), but I am not forced to publish the sources for my application?

--claus_brod@hp.com-----------------------------------------------------
  Claus Brod, CoCreate Software    Have you hugged your manager today?
  CoCreate Software GmbH
  A Hewlett-Packard Company        Phone: +49 7031 951 152
-- http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/3366 ---#include <disclaimer>--
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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Larry Meadows]

> In other words, as long as I just use the Cygwin32 DLL(s) along with the
> header files to compile and link my application, I can distribute my
> application along with the Cygwin32 DLLs (plus maybe the sources for the
> DLLs), but I am not forced to publish the sources for my application?

That's not true according to cygnus. Note that the cygwin32 stuff is under
the GPL, not the LGPL; so the fact that you link against it requires
you to distribute your source. The following is a quote from the
FAQ ( http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/faq.html ):

The Cygwin32 API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is now also covered by the GNU GPL. Since by default all
executables link against this library, programs compiled by the beta 17 tools will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL
with source code available to all. 

lfm
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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[@ 1997-10-19 5:27 UTC (permalink / raw)]

Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Larry Meadows]

> Correct me if I am wrong ...
> 
> My recollection of the GPL is that the source code must be available.
> Neither the application nor the code has to be free - you can charge as you
> wish.  The key word is "available", not "free'.

That's a very good point. However, below you'll find my interpretation of
the license.  A couple of quotes:

Sec 2:

    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

and,

Sec 3:
    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
    years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
    cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
    machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
    distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

So, it does appear that you can charge whatever you want for the binary,
but it appears that the source code must be either included in
that cost or distributed for a nominal charge. In the PC world
this is really tough, since it is hard to charge more that $1000 or so
for a program, and typically vendors would prefer to charge a lot 
more than that for source code.

lfm

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Re: Cygnus used in a Product ?

[Fergus Henderson]

Larry Meadows, you wrote:
> > In other words, as long as I just use the Cygwin32 DLL(s) along with the
> > header files to compile and link my application, I can distribute my
> > application along with the Cygwin32 DLLs (plus maybe the sources for the
> > DLLs), but I am not forced to publish the sources for my application?
> 
> That's not true according to cygnus.

Cygnus have been changing their tune.

> Note that the cygwin32 stuff is under
> the GPL, not the LGPL; so the fact that you link against it requires
> you to distribute your source.

That's not correct.  The requirements of the GPL apply only if your work
is a derived work.  Merely linking against a DLL does not necessarily
make your work a derived work.

> The following is a quote from the
> FAQ ( http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/faq.html ):
> 
> The Cygwin32 API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is now also covered by the GNU GPL. Since by default all
> executables link against this library, programs compiled by the beta 17 tools will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL
> with source code available to all. 

Well, Cygnus can put such statements in the FAQ list if they want,
I guess, but being in the FAQ list won't make them correct.

If Cygnus actually give such statements some legal teeth (e.g. by
releasing B19 with a license that does not allow free use of
libcygwin.a), then there are a number of people who are ready to
fork a new stream of development from the existing B18 sources.

(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Yadda yadda yadda...)

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: < http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh >   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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