Re: Cygwin participation threshold

[DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com>]

> Seriously I effectively remember having noted that I may get a cygwin
> release not covered by the GPL against a fee

Yes, but the only part not covered by the fee is the cygwin/newlib
runtime libraries.  Things like the compiler will always be GPL, no
matter how much you pay.

> (the one thing I don't know is "how much?");

Me neither.  It depends on how much support you want, I think.  We
have everything from "will be fixed in the next release" to "will be
fixed and in your hands in a few hours".

> however I think it's quite discouraging to see Cygnus, known to be
> able to earn its life with free software due to its excellent
> support to its high-grade customers

Yup, that's us.  Support and custom work are still by far the biggest
chunk of our income.

> (I think I remember support contracts with Cygnus were quite
> expensive),

And worth it, I think.  When was the last time you got a useful answer
out of Microsoft's support line?

> shift to a purely mercantile strategy: If you pay, you'll get the
> right to earn some money and to use some proprietary Cygnus code and
> corrections that may never be put in the net release...

Look at it the other way - it encourages people to produce GPL
software, since to do otherwise is more expensive.

As for the "never be put in the net release" you're wrong.  All our
contracts are negotiated such that all changes are folded into the net
releases eventually, usually within six months for custom work.  In
the case of cygwin (winsup, at least), I don't think there's any code
at the moment that isn't already in the net releases.

As for "purely mercantile" you're wrong there too.  Product sales are
a small part of our income, and even then each product sale includes a
support contract, which is part of the price.  I think the *smallest*
contract you can buy is a 30-day "Getting Started" contract.

> Too bad for free software fate :-( or *please* explain me that I'm
> plain wrong and that Cygnus is not doing anything like that...

I think you're wrong, but it's hard to expain why.  Consider that the
GNUPro package (that's what we call it) contains more than just
software.  For the price you pay, you get the following:

* Software that's been fully tested and known to work well together
* hard media and printed documentation
* commercial-grade phone and email support, as much as you paid for
* custom patches and upgrades as per your support agreement
* permission to use the GNUPro runtime for proprietary products

As you see, you're not just paying for the license change.  You're
paying for a lot more, and the license is just part of it.  By selling
these bundles, we accomplish the following goals:

* we spread the word about free software
* we encourage companies to *write* free software
* we fund free software development
* we are more profitable :-)

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