Cygwin license

[gernot@cse.unsw.edu.au]

Hi,

I'm a professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney,
Australia and am teaching a course on operating systems.

For our assignments we use a teaching operating system called Topsy from
ETH Zurich, which runs on the MIPS architecture. We use the SimOS system
from Stanford to run Topsy on our various Unix platforms.

As many of our students own wintel systems we would like to make
SimOS/Topsy available for them to use when working at home on
assignments. We are confident that we can port SimOS to wintel, provided
we can link against the Cygwin API library.

This is where we have a licensing problem. Your license requires all
code to be linked against your library to be GPLed. According to
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/licensing.html:

               The Cygwin API library found in the winsup subdirectory
               of the source code is also covered by the GNU GPL. By
               default, all executables link against this library (and
               in the process include GPL'd Cygwin glue code). This
               means that unless you modify the tools so that compiled
               executables do not make use of the Cygwin library, your
               compiled programs will also have to be free software
               distributed under the GPL with source code available to
               all.

The SimOS source is available under a license from Stanford University
(attached below). It differs from the GPL in that:

 - it does not require making code available in source form,

 - it does not allow commercial use.

We would be happy to be bound by the GPL requirement of making
everything we distribute as binaries available in source form. In fact,
we always planned to release our ports in source on the web.

However, we can, of course, not relax Stanford's restrictions on
commercial use without their agreement (which seems unlikely). Hence we
fear that we might be technically in breach of your license if we link
SimOS against your library, even though we feel that we would be
adhering to the spirit of it.

We would appreciate if you could clarify this licensing issue for us,
and hope that we will be able to use the Cygwin API library as outlined
above.

Yours sincerely,
Gernot Heiser

------------------------------------------------------------------------

License Agreement from Stanford University
------------------------------------------

1.  Hereafter, "SimOS" refers to the SimOS machine simulation
environment and all associated source and documentation materials.

This is a legal agreement between you, RECIPIENT, and STANFORD
UNIVERSITY.  By accepting, receiving and using SimOS, you are agreeing
to be bound by the terms of this Agreement.  If you do not agree to
the terms of this Agreement, promptly return SimOS to STANFORD.

2.  STANFORD grants to RECIPIENT a royalty-free, nonexclusive,
nontransferable, and non-commerical license to use SimOS furnished
hereunder, upon the terms and conditions set out below.

3.  RECIPIENT acknowledges that SimOS is a research tool still in the
development stage and that they are being supplied "as is," without
any accompanying services or improvements from STANFORD.

4.  STANFORD MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.  By
way of example, but not limitation, STANFORD MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT
THE USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE COMPONENTS OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT
INFRINGE ANY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.  STANFORD
shall not be held liable for any liability nor for any direct, indirect or
consequential damages with respect to any claim by RECIPIENT or any third
party on account of or arising from this Agreement or use of SimOS.
--
Gernot Heiser                ,--_|\   School of Computer Sci. & Engin.
Phone:  +61 2 9385 5156     /      \  The University of NSW
Fax:    +61 2 9385 5995     \_,--._*  Sydney, Australia 2052
E-mail: G.Heiser@unsw.edu.au      v   http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~gernot
PGP	fingerprint: 94 1E B8 28 25 FD 7C 94  20 10 92 E5 0B FF 39 8F

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