Hi, I have a few questions about Cygwin licensing, and the last one I think is kind of tricky.
I run a software distribution system in Lucent that automatically distributes hundreds of tools, mostly open source tools but also some internal proprietary tools. The system includes a remote-compile capability that we allow volunteers from all over the company to use to compile the tools which they then install for distribution. We support a lot of Unix types and now we want to add a Cygwin type and are almost ready to deploy it. Question 1: There's no problem with distributing proprietary tools internally that use the Cygwin library, correct? I don't see anything in the GPL that would prevent that. We do make the source code of these tools also available internally if that matters, and everybody inside can do with it as they wish except that they're subject to our own company's rules and so won't redistribute it outside the company. Question 2: There are currently two other companies (both which happen to have spun off of Lucent) that we send our tools to, in both binary and source form, and they pay us to get all the tools including the open source tools and many of the proprietary tools. The source for our own tools that we send them is not under the GPL; they may use it internally for whatever purpose they want, but may not redistribute it outside. There's no reason why they couldn't take our source code and compile it themselves with Cygwin for their own internal use, right? Again, I don't see how the GPL prevents that. Question 3: It would save the other two companies trouble if we also gave them the binaries of our proprietary tools, and they would end up with the same result as if they compiled the tools themselves. However, I believe the GPL and http://cygwin.com/licensing.html requires that if we gave them our binaries linked with Cygwin, we'd have to give them our source under some open source license, meaning they'd have the right to redistribute it outside their company. Am I right? Even if I am, would you grant an exception for this case because they end up with the same result if we compile it for them or if they compile it themselves? Thanks, - Dave Dykstra -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
