Hi!
This is off topic I know… but anyway…
I thinking of test cygwin on a windows computer and try to compile a few
applications for windows.
But then I thought, do my application need to be GPL because cygwin is
licensed under GPL?
Anyone here that knows this, that could explain it for me?
// Alexander Bussman
Shouldn’t be a problem. Both Cygwin libraries and SDL are licensed under
LGPL, I think, which allows dynamic linkage to commercial applications.
Static linkage is another question, but dynamic linkage is good for most
application anyway, and it’s the default setting for both SDL and Cygwin.
-MarkOn Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Alexander Bussman wrote:
Hi!
This is off topic I know… but anyway…
I thinking of test cygwin on a windows computer and try to compile a few
applications for windows.
But then I thought, do my application need to be GPL because cygwin is
licensed under GPL?
Anyone here that knows this, that could explain it for me?// Alexander Bussman
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But then I thought, do my application need to be GPL because cygwin is
licensed under GPL?
Anyone here that knows this, that could explain it for me?
There are two editions of cygwin available. The free edition only allows
you to distribute applications which are open source. I don’t know if it
needs to be GPL or can be another OSI-approved licence, check the cygwin
webpage for details. But I would expect some BSD, MIT or Apache licence
should be ok, too.
If you want to distribute closed-source software with cygwin, you need to
buy the commercial cygwin release.
Unless you really do need the cygwin POSIX layer, you should also have a
look at MinGW, which is basically GCC-for-Win32 without the POSIX stuff of
cygwin. MinGW does not have any licence restrictions for your
applications, you can use it for commercial closed-source projects. Most
people do not need the cygwin POSIX layer and MinGW is sufficient.
PeterOn Sun, 01 Feb 2004 23:57:57 +0100, Alexander Bussman wrote:
Shouldn’t be a problem. Both Cygwin libraries and SDL are licensed under
LGPL, I think, which allows dynamic linkage to commercial applications.
The Cygwin runtime library is licenced under the GPL, not LGPL. This means
it does not allow dynamic linking of closed source applications, unlike
the LGPL.
http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_8.html#SEC135 should explain it.
Sorry for two mails, just saw this one after sending my last. 
PeterOn Sun, 1 Feb 2004 22:18:06 -0800 (PST), Mark K. Kim wrote:
Peter Strempel wrote:> On Sun, 1 Feb 2004 22:18:06 -0800 (PST), Mark K. Kim wrote:
Shouldn’t be a problem. Both Cygwin libraries and SDL are licensed
under
LGPL, I think, which allows dynamic linkage to commercial applications.The Cygwin runtime library is licenced under the GPL, not LGPL. This
means it does not allow dynamic linking of closed source applications,
unlike the LGPL.http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_8.html#SEC135 should explain it.
Sorry for two mails, just saw this one after sending my last.
Peter
SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl
Well, then I think I should go with mingw instead just to be sure.
Thanks for your answers.
// Alexander Bussman
The Cygwin runtime library is licenced under the GPL, not LGPL. This means
it does not allow dynamic linking of closed source applications, unlike
the LGPL.
http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_8.html#SEC135 should explain it.
That’s correct, however the way SDL is built, it does not use the Cygwin
runtime library, even when built by the cygwin compiler. If you build
with the -mno-cygwin compiler option, like SDL does, you should be fine.
See ya,
-Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment