Will there ever be a new free release?

DJ Delorie dj@delorie.com
Mon Nov 22 14:21:00 GMT 1999


> I have not understood the relationship between the cygwin version
> that I can download freely (b20.1) and the commercially available
> cygwin (1.0).

The cygwin core is constantly under development (this is where the
"snapshots" come from).  At one point in time, we packaged everything
up and called it "Beta 20.1".  At some later point in time, we
packaged everything up and called it "Version 1.0".  The first we
don't support.  The second we provide installation support for, but
otherwise don't support.  We also have a "GNUPro for NT" that is yet
another packaged-up distribution.

At some point in the future, we will package everything up and produce
yet another net release.  And another CDROM.  And another GNUPro.  Etc.

> In my understanding of the GPL, all changes made by cygwin should be
> made available to us as differences to the freely available version.

No.  The GPL does not require that people distribute software.  It
only requires that *if* software is distributed, *then* the sources
must be available also, to the person who has the software.  If we
never gave you a copy of the CDROM, you are not entitled to its
sources.

> Or is everything integrated in the current snapshot?

The snapshots are only the cygwin1.dll and "winsup" stuff (ps, kill,
mount).  What you see in the snapshot includes everything in B20.1 and
in 1.0, plus more (we're still working on it, remember?)  We never
know if a snapshot does anything else besides build.  We don't test
the net releases (well, a little).  We do test the commercial
releases.

> If yes will there ever be another freely available "stabalized"
> version like e.g. "b21" or will there only be snapshots in the
> future?

We will continue doing net releases and snapshots.  We're just very
busy and haven't had the time to do one recently.  In fact, we're
working on a new procedure that will allow us to put out net releases
more often with less effort.

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