From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: DJ Delorie To: mvoss@kuttig.com Cc: gnu-win32@cygnus.com Subject: Re: Licensing Terms Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 09:01:00 -0000 Message-id: <199811051555.KAA21203@indy.delorie.com> References: X-SW-Source: 1998-11/msg00243.html > Does that also apply to software built with EGCS-1.1-MinGW32 ??? Cygwin's license applies only to Cygwin and things built with Cygwin; it cannot apply to anything else independent of it. You have to read the licensing terms for Mingw to find out its terms, which seem to be: "The source code and header files that make up Mingw32 (located in the src and include directories of the archive which contained this file) are in the PUBLIC DOMAIN." This means you don't have to do anything special for MingW. As for EGCS, it has long been known that compiling a program with gcc or egcs does not affect the copyright status of the program itself. Only if you use egcs's source code as part of your program would the GNU GPL apply. Note that MingW uses Microsoft's runtime DLLs; you may want to check into their license to see if there are any additional restrictions. These DLLs aren't linked into your program, but if you want to include these DLLs in your distribution (you shouldn't have to) you might have a problem. > If so, WHAT do I have to buy, and what share does Mumit Khan get of that > money (he made the MinGW324EGCS package, after all)? Apparently, nothing (for both questions). You are encouraged to send donations to people you feel deserve it, but I think that's always been the case anyway :-) > Can I SELL the software built with either Cygwin or EGCS if I > include the source code? Building with EGCS doesn't matter; that doesn't affect what you can do with your own programs. It's only linking with things that affects your programs. So, for "built with Cygwin", yes, you can sell your software for as much as you want, as long as the source code is included and you obey the terms of the license. You can't, however, charge a fee (other than reasonable copying fees) for just the sources, once the user has the binaries. You can charge as much as you want for just the sources if you don't ship binaries; the GNU GPL doesn't stop that. The GNU GPL only forces you to "give" the sources *if* the user already has the binaries. The GNU GPL also means that once you sell it to one person, you can't stop them from giving it away to others, as long as they obey the GNU GPL as well. - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request@cygnus.com" with one line of text: "help".