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Re: Packaging O'Caml
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> Wow, this is amazing. In all of the years that you've been following cygwin
> in the mailing list, this is the first time you've ever read the licensing
> page?
Oh, I've read it before, but this particular exception seemed to not wedge
itself in my mind as firmly as the rest of it. :-)
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 02:46:55PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> >On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:
> >>Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> >>>However, parts of it are released under the "Q Public license", which
> >>>GNU lists explicitly as non-GPL-compatible. Does this mean an
> >>>automatic "no" to an official Cygwin package [...] ?
> >>
> >>From http://cygwin.com/licensing.html: 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.
> >
> >Interestingly enough, this doesn't mention cygwin1.dll, only
> >libcygwin.a, but I may be nitpicking...
>
> Or, you may be missing the point. When that sentence was written you
> couldn't do something like "gcc -o foo foo.c /bin/cygwin1.dll". You
> had to "gcc -o foo foo.c -lcygwin".
>
> The act of linking something with your program is part of what causes
> the GPL to become active. Including pieces from libcygwin.a into your
> program is part of what exercises the GPL.
>
> Other methods of linking are not covered by this generous exception.
Huh? So, for example, if one builds a program that uses, say,
cygncurses7.dll (by linking with /usr/lib/libncurses.dll.a), which, in
turn, uses cygwin1.dll, that program cannot be released under any license
that's incompatible with GPL?
> >> IANAL, but the Q Public License is listed on the OSI web page, so there
> >> don't appear to be any legal restrictions -- some Cygwin packages use
> >> different open source licenses already.
> >>
> >> Or have there been policy changes for new Cygwin packages that I'm not
> >> aware of?
> >
> >What threw me off was this sentense on the GNU GPL licensing page
> >(<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html>):
> >
> > Since the QPL is incompatible with the GNU GPL, you cannot take a
> > GPL-covered program and QPL-covered program and link them
> > together, no matter how.
>
> Since cygwin has an exception to the GPL, this section is potentially
> irrelevant.
Yep, that's what I said below.
> >However, it seems I didn't read the document carefully enough, as it goes
> >on to say
> >
> > However, if you have written a program that uses QPL-covered
> > library (called FOO), and you want to release your program under
> > the GNU GPL, you can easily do that. You can resolve the conflict
> > for your program by adding a notice like this to it:
> >
> > As a special exception, you have permission to link this program
> > with the FOO library and distribute executables, as long as you
> > follow the requirements of the GNU GPL in regard to all of the
> > software in the executable aside from FOO.
> >
> >which is almost exactly what you quoted from the Cygwin licensing page.
> >So I guess we're ok. As soon as I work out the packaging bugs, I'll ITP
> >O'Caml.
>
> No, it is not the same thing. The exception in the cygwin licensing
> allows other licenses to still have effect as long as they adhere to
> the open source definitions mentioned. The GPL doesn't trump these
> licenses, although if you adhere to the GPL, then that's all the
> better.
Ah, you're right, the above quote is the inverse of that on the Cygwin
licensing page. However, from the earlier discussion, it does seem like
releasing the Cygwin binary of O'Caml won't conflict with the terms of
Cygwin licensing. Am I correct in my interpretation?
Thanks,
Igor
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