Sorry, I have to correct myself in terms of the license:
On Jan 30 16:16, Corinna Vinschen via Cygwin wrote:
> Hi Marvin,
>
> On Jan 29 22:24, Marvin.C.Scott--- via Cygwin wrote:
> > Good day -
> >
> > I represent a logistics team of users of CYGWIN freeware for a
> > government contract. In my role I am responsible for tracking support
> > and end of life for software assets.
> >
> > In the before mentioned effort mentioned above I have a general
> > question.
> >
> > Do CYGWIN freeware developers or contributors enact any end or
>
> Careful, please. Cygwin is NOT freeware!
>
> Cygwin is licensed per the GNU General Public License version 3(*), and
> that contains a couple of restrictions and responsibilities you should
> be aware of. If you're unsure about the difference, I urge you to
> contact your company's laywer to make sure you're in the clear.
Cygwin 1.5.3 was not yet under GPL v3. Back in 2003, Cygwin was
still under the CYGWIN license, which was going like this:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** NOTE ***
In accordance with section 10 of the GPL, Red Hat permits programs whose
sources are distributed under a license that complies with the Open
Source definition to be linked with libcygwin.a without libcygwin.a
itself causing the resulting program to be covered by the GNU GPL.
This means that you can port an Open Source(tm) application to cygwin,
and distribute that executable as if it didn't include a copy of
libcygwin.a linked into it. Note that this does not apply to the cygwin
DLL itself. If you distribute a (possibly modified) version of the DLL
you must adhere to the terms of the GPL, i.e. you must provide sources
for the cygwin DLL.
See http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html for the precise Open
Source
Definition referenced above.
Red Hat sells a special Cygwin License for customers who are unable to
provide their application in open source code form. For more
information, please see: http://www.redhat.com/software/tools/cygwin/,
or call 866-2REDHAT ext. 3007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "special Cygwin License for customers who are unable to provide
their application in open source code form" is not active anymore.
Given that, you have to comply with the general rule of the GPL v2,
plus the GPL section 10 exception.
I.e., you *must not* provide proprietary software linked to the
Cygwin DLL to your customers.
If in doubt, contact your company lawyer!
Corinna
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