Nobody in the world understands Gnu's 'ld'.

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 15:13:49 +0100
   From: "Pedro A. Aranda Guti\irrez" <paag@tid.es>

   > > I'd love to have some documentation if you care to write some and
   > > contribute it.  This is, after all, free software.  It improves by
   > > contributions.

   Contributions sold afterwards by Cygnus. Forgive me, but if my
   work is going to produce benefits, they should be for me and not
   for someone else. I'm no DOn Quijote.

   Ergo => all this commercial licensing stuff of Cygnus has somehow
   rarified the atmosphere of FSF'ish software (that's at least my 
   feeling and my VERY personal opinion)

Don't get confused.  BFD, gas, ld, the binutils, are all under the GPL
and always have been.  Any contributions you or anybody chooses to
make will be made under the GPL, will require a copyright assignment
to the Free Software Foundation, and will be included in future
binutils net releases for anybody to use.

The commercial licensing stuff applies only to the gnu win32 library
itself, which is copyrighted by Cygnus.  It does not apply to the
binutils.

On another topic, to quote you: ``if my work is going to produce
benefits, they should be for me and not for someone else. I'm no DOn
Quijote.''  I'm sorry you feel that way.  If you are using the GNU
binutils, or any FSF software, or indeed the GPL version of gnu-win32
itself, then you are benefitting from the work of people who are
rather less selfish than you seem to be.

I've been working in free software for several years now, starting
some years before I joined Cygnus.  I would certainly say ``if my work
is going to produce benefits, they should be for me.''  I don't work
out of altruism.  However, I would never say that the benefits should
not be for someone else as well.

Ian
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