From: Stan Shebs Subject: Re: Starting all over from 16.1 ? 14 Feb 1997 11:24:11 -0800 Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: References: <3303EA8D.17C9.cygnus.gnu-win32@kamus.it> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 assini@kamus.it (Pasqualino Assini) writes: > If 16.1 or something similar is still LGPLed couldn't we > > (by we I mean those who don't find it amusing to see > cygnus.dll becoming a commercial product) > > just start a new developement thread from it and keep it LGPLed ? > > Or cygnus can retrospectively change the status of a version > from LGPL to GPL ? Much of the older code has no explicit terms on it at all, which means that it is by default "all rights reserved". I don't think there's any problem with hacking away on it as a personal project, but any honest and knowledgeable lawyer would tell you to stay miles away from it for a commercial product. After all, perhaps Cygnus might get bought by AT&T or something, and they would decide to exercise their rights and go after commercial products using old cygwin32 stuff. (Knowledgeable lawyers should be able to quote you plenty of similar cases - for instance, the Symbolics code grab that was one of the impetuses for RMS starting GNU in the first place, or the contention over Berkeley sources.) Stan