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Re: The gnu-win32@cygnus.com mailing list


Richard Stallman, you wrote:
> 
> I don't see a problem with the fact that cygwin32 is distributed under
> the GPL.

I do see a problem with it.

My colleagues and I are implementing a new programming language called Mercury.
Our implementation is free software; the Mercury compiler is GPL'd and
the Mercury libraries and runtime system are LGPL'd.

> There is no general GNU policy that libraries should never be
> distributed under the ordinary GPL.  I decided to use the Library GPL
> for GNU libc because using the ordinary GPL would have made it
> impossible to have proprietary software on a GNU system.  If GNU libc
> were distributed under the GPL, that would discourage use of GNU
> systems, rather than discouraging development of proprietary software.
> It could have caused a serious problem for GNU.

If the Mercury library were distributed under the GPL, that would
discourage the use of Mercury, for similar reasons.  If Mercury didn't
run on NT, that would also discourage the use of Mercury.  Since the NT
port of Mercury uses gnu-win32 (and since any other sort of port
doesn't look feasible for us), that means that if cygwin is GPL'd, it
will discourage the use of Mercury.  The people who might pay for the
development of the Mercury system want to write programs on NT, and
they are not willing to write free software.  So at least in our case,
a GPL'd cygwin would indeed hurt free software.

> The alternate release of cygwin32 under non-free terms is a separate
> issue from its release under the GPL.  This non-free distribution does
> cause problems for the free software community.  It sets the wrong
> tone, conveys a bad idea.

Yes, indeed.  If our users end up paying Cygnus to use our product with
Cygnus' POSIX emulation package, then by God we deserve a cut -- and to
achieve that, we'll have to put the Mercury libraries under the same
GPL/commercial licensing scheme.

> While serious, these problems don't prevent us from using the
> software.

Yes, the good news is that there seems to be a technical solution:
there is a version of libcygwin.a that is freely available under a
license that is compatible with the LGPL.

-- 
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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