This is the mail archive of the
cygwin-apps@cygwin.com
mailing list for the Cygwin project.
Re: maybe-ITP: bsdiff
On May 16 11:56, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 05:29:16PM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> >On May 16 10:18, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> >> On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 01:04:54PM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> >> >If in doubt, don't put it into the distro. There is doubt, apparently.
> >>
> >> I haven't been reading this too closely but I don't see why there's a
> >> problem. If the sources are being distributed along with the binaries
> >> then the letter of the GPL is being maintained. Unless you are
> >> violating the BSDPL license terms and think someone is going to come
> >> after you as a result, I don't see what the package's license terms have
> >> to do with anything.
> >
> >The problem is that it's not clear if BSDPL is an OSS license in the sense
> >which is covered by the Cygwin license excemtption according to section 10
> >of the GPL.
>
> Why does it need a cygwin license exemption if we're distributing the source
> code under the terms of the GPL? Are we afraid that someone will take the
> binary from our distribution and distribute it under another license?
Don't make me nervous with legal stuff, that's unfair!
AFAIU, an OSS product in excempt from becoming GPL'ed automatically when
build against the Cygwin DLL only if the license is an approved OSS license
given a specific definition of the term OSS. The BSDPL license used for
bsdiff is apparently questionable. The important part is that BSDPL
explicitely restricts it's openness in relation to the GPL, because the
author of the BSDPL license doesn't want the code ever to become
"GPL-tainted", whatever he means by that.
Corinna
--
Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.