Re: LYNX-DEV Win32 gcc

[David Woolley]

> 
> > On Thu, 7 Aug 1997, Wayne Buttles wrote:
> > 
> > > Has anyone really tried the www.cygnus.com win32 compiler?  ...
> 
> I am now even more confused.  I just scoped out the Win32 gcc stuff and I
> am unsure about mingw32 and its owners claims that cygnus's new license
> makes cygwin32 non-free software.  If anyone knows about this, please fill
> me in.  Thanks!

I don't know the specifics, but it would be legally possible for parts of
the system to be made commercial. The DLL could be made commercial, but gcc
and bash can never be made commercial.  Of course, without the DLL, the
compiler and shell are unuseable, but that is the same position as using
them on a commercial Unix.

Note that the compiler interfaces to the run time DLL must be published,
as it forms part of a derived work, and, as I understand it, they
cannot distribute the compiler in a way which would not permit a
re-implementation to those interfaces.

It would be questionable whether they even got the normal dispensations for
standard system header files.
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