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Re: redistributing cygwin1.dll


On Mon, 12 May 2003, Jean Delvare wrote:

> > >it looks like you're the person to contact to solve my problem. If
> > >not, please redirect me to the right person.
> >
> > The "right person" is the cygwin mailing list.  You somehow found the
> > archives without finding the numerous exhortations against private
> > email.
> >
> > I've cc'ed this message there.
>
> Oops, sorry. I should have paid more attention, since I am myself on
> many mailing-lists and I hate being contacted in private as much as you
> seem to be. Sorry again.
>
> > > From what I read on the mailing list, I am infringing the GPL
> > > doing so.
> >
> > Yes, you are not compliant with the GPL.
> > (...)
> > I haven't had the time to implement anything special.  Your simplest
> > solution is just to make sure that the sources for your applications
> > are downloadable and that the source code (e.g.,
> > cygwin-1.3.22-src.tar.bz2) for the cygwin DLL you are providing is
> > also available.  It really isn't that hard.
>
> Not that I find it hard, but it's probably much trouble for nothing. And
> I don't speak for me only. I'm not the only one facing the problem,
> since I could first find a previous post on the mailing list with the
> same kind of request, and a quick search with Google gave me some more
> pages proposing cygwin1.dll for download without the sources. On some
> other pages, the file simply isn't available for download anymore, due
> to the licensing issue (which means that the author chose to remove the
> binary rather than to make the sources available for download).
>
> I really think you should do something about this. Forcing people to
> make the source available has the following drawbacks IMHO:
>  * Some people will choose to remove the binary, possibly due to
> technical limitations. This makes their work unusable for most users.
>  * Others will choose to make the sources available (few of them, I
> suppose). It's probably a waste of space, since few users, if any, will
> ever download it, and the ones wanting to do so will probably get the
> file from cygwin's setup.
>  * Most people, I believe, will keep the binary without offering the
> sources. They'll infringe the GPL and I can't blame them for that. They
> don't intend to do anything bad, most of them are sharing their own
> code. Such cases of unpunished GPL infringement could be exploited by
> evil lawyers.
>  * In the two later cases, the binary and possibly source form of the
> library will be quickly outdated, since Cygwin is evolving rather fast.
> I don't plan to update my page that often, and I believe most authors
> won't either.
>
> So, I really believe you should set a place up where people can get the
> latest version of cygwin1.dll, in binary and source forms. A simple or
> http directory would do it, if you don't want to make it very public and
> advertise for it. Authors like me would then just have to link to the
> directory, sparing disk space and protecting the GPL.
>
> Comments welcome.

Jean,

This has been rehashed on the list many times.  There is such a place --
in fact, many places, collectively called "the Cygwin mirrors".  Simply
instruct your users to download "setup.exe" from Cygwin's main site (i.e.,
<http://cygwin.com/>), and use it to install the "cygwin" package.  This
will get them a minimum setup required to run your code.  That way all you
have to worry about is your program running on all versions of
cygwin1.dll, and you're all set.
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor@watson.ibm.com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
  -- Leto II


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