[Nano-devel] Lack of source for cygwin1.dll in windows version of nano

[Christopher Faylor]

A cygwin mailing list user indicated that you were providing a copy
of cygwin1.dll in your windows distribution of nano, so I thought I'd
check out your site to see what was up.  I may be missing something but
I don't see the source code for the cygwin DLL located anywhere on
your site.

As you know, the cygwin DLL is GPLed so that means that source code must
be made available somehow.  Many people think that since the source code
is available somewhere on the internet, they are covered but,
unfortunately, as the FSF's GPL FAQ points out, you really do need to
provide the exact source for the binary that you are distributing.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#SourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites

Just grabbing the source tar ball and making it available at your web
site should be sufficient.

I must also point out that your advice to put the dll in C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32
is counter to what we normally tell people.  The cygwin distribution puts
the DLL in something like c:\cygwin\bin, so if there are conflicts, people
could become confused.

Finally, since nano is already a part of the cygwin distribution, maybe
it would make sense just to point people at the cygwin web site and let
them download the version from cygwin.com.  Just a suggestion.

Anyway, I hope that this minor GPL issue can be resolved without too much
fuss.  If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Best Regards,
Christopher Faylor
Cygwin Project Lead