Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com; run by ezmlm Sender: cygwin-owner AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 13:55:25 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902241855.NAA16459@brocade.nexen.com> From: Steve Morris MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com Subject: Re: Cygwin participation threshold X-Mailer: VM 6.31 under 20.2 XEmacs Lucid Christopher Faylor writes: > It is interesting that you felt this way at first. I wonder if the reason > has anything to do with the name "Cygwin" which sounds so similar to "Cygnus". > > The reason I am saying this is because hundreds of people have contributed to > the linux project and *many* companies make money from linux. Actually I think you've hit on a major issue. Even though Cygnus makes cygwin available as sourceware it is obviously a Cygnus product. Cygnus controls the feature set. Design decisions are made by Cygnus. People can contribute but Cygnus is the final arbitor on design decisions and even code style. With gcc it is different. Cygnus is the official maintainer but the perception is that Cygnus acts more as a custodian for FSF and the free software community. FSF owns the copyright. Redhat is another example. Redhat doesn't own Linux. RPM is the only significant thing that RedHat copyrights and even that makes people nervous. On the other hand Cygwin is obviously branded. Even the mailing list is controlled by Cygnus. The developers mailing list access is restricted by Cygnus engineers. The official Cygwin web page is controlled by Cygnus. The bug list is an internal Cygnus system. Psychologically it doesn't make me feel like I would count as much as a Cygnus engineer if I contributed. Helping Cygnus with their free software product doesn't have the same cachet as helping Linus Torvald with his. Linus stands first among equals partners. How can I feel like an equal partner to a company? I guess the issue is not companies making money on free software. Instead the issue is companies being perceived as controlling the software development. Tcl is entering the same delicate state. With Ousterhout starting Scriptics which is now the official distributor of the release people are beginning to get nervous. The question always hovers "will Scriptics pull Tcl in and make it a commercial product?" TclPro is $1000 a seat. What if new development or the good extensions only appear in TclPro? Nobody begrudges Ousterhout's right to make money on his major contribution but still there is anxiety. I don't envy Cygnus as it tries to walk this tightrope. -- Want to unsubscribe from this list? Send a message to cygwin-unsubscribe AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com