LGPL is compatible with Cygwin's license (GPL+exceptions)

LGPL is compatible with Cygwin's license (GPL+exceptions)

Posted Nov 21, 2008 17:39 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: LGPL is compatible with Cygwin's license (GPL+exceptions) by dwheeler
Parent article: MinGW and why Linux users should care

Red Hat permits [open source programs] to be linked with libcygwin.a/cygwin1.dll without libcygwin.a/cygwin1.dll itself causing the resulting program to be covered by the GNU GPL.

This wording shows a typical misunderstanding of copyright, wherein someone thinks a copyright license is something that restricts you in distributing software.

If the resulting program is not covered by GPL, nobody has Red Hat's permission to distribute it at all. (We assume of course that it's a derivative work so that Red Hat has copyright, because otherwise nobody needs Red Hat's permission and the whole point is moot).

I believe what the license means to say is, "... without Red Hat asserting any copyright over the resulting program due to libcygwin.a/cygwin1.dll itself."

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