Re: About Cygwin license

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Armo Super wrote:

> Hello
>
> What do you think about next situation?
>
> I have made an software, that I'm going to sell.
> My software uses PostgreSql database system, witch is
> distributed under BSD license.
> If I want to get PostgreSql run in Windows
> environment, I need Cygwin.
>
> My software  -(direct use)-> JDBC -(socket)->
> PostgreSql -(direct?)-> Cygwin
>
> And now, is there any resctrictions towards my
> software from GPL, becouse my software is not using
> Cygwin.
>
> Thank you

Disclaimer: <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#GPL>, first definition.  Having
asked this question on the Cygwin list, you're about to receive loads of
*personal* opinions from *non-lawyers*, so it's in your best interest to
contact a real lawyer.

That aside, and with the understanding that IANAL:
Common sense dictates that socket connections cannot be thought of as
"linking" (which is what the GPL covers).  After all, connecting with a
proprietary ssh client to a GPL'd ssh daemon on Linux doesn't make the
client GPL'd (AFAIK).  Now, if your program is actually linked to some of
PostgreSQL DLLs, that's a whole different story...

Of course, <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#YANALATEYHSMBSI>.
	Igor
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