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Kind of disappointed to hear this, although at least they did not switch to a permissive license. What I'm still not sure is why they are dropping copyright as

Kind of disappointed to hear this, although at least they did not switch to a permissive license. What I'm still not sure is why they are dropping copyright assignment. Don't the same litigation problems exist when using LGPL, or is there something I'm missing?

richardfontana 10y ago
The main reason, I'd say (at least by the time of the Cygnus acquisition) the only reason, for copyright assignment for Cygwin was to ensure that Cygnus/Red Hat was the sole GPL licensor. Thus Cygnus/Red Hat, and only Cygnus/Red Hat, could offer alternative for-fee license arrangements. This was the basis of the business model. Copyright assignment isn't the only means of achieving that result with a GPL-licensed project, but it was the traditional technique and probably the soundest from a legal perspective. Red Hat is phasing out this commercial model for Cygwin. Hence single-licensor GPL licensing is no longer necessary or, I'd say, appropriate. It has nothing directly to do with litigation issues in any general sense. By 2020, I expect that all contributions to Cygwin will be made under the LGPL, meaning that there will potentially be a diversity of LGPL licensors in contrast to the situation prior to today where there was one GPL licensor.
djsumdog 10y ago
I hear you on this. I'm currently working on a writeup about the history of open source and the GPL. The dream of having totally free and open replacements for major tools like Photoshop never really happened. There is a lot of new OSS, but it's all BSDL, Apache, MIT and other license. I'm not like a hard core Stallman person. I don't run libre-firmware laptops from pre-2008 and I enjoy my Gapps on my phone, but I'm not a big fan of startups/monetization of everything. I think a lot of good ideas are strangled by making them commercially viable. Cygwin going LGPL allows it to be more widely used, but overall we're going to see less OSS apps as a result.
- cyphar 10y ago
  > I hear you on this. I'm currently working on a writeup about the history of open source and the GPL. If you're going to write up a history, please use the term "free software". "Open source" didn't exist for a large part of the history of the free software movement (and I would argue that it was a movement to sabotage discussions about freedom). > The dream of having totally free and open replacements for major tools like Photoshop never really happened. There is a lot of new OSS, but it's all BSDL, Apache, MIT and other license. It did though. Okay, Photoshop is still not overtaken by GIMP. But we have professional free software video editors, development tools, web and database servers, document writers, etc. These days you can run a modern system entirely in freedom, though of course we would love to make more free software to do things even better. > I'm not like a hard core Stallman person. I don't run libre-firmware laptops from pre-2008 and I enjoy my Gapps on my phone, but I'm not a big fan of startups/monetization of everything. I think a lot of good ideas are strangled by making them commercially viable. I'm slowly becoming one, and the main reason why is because I want to work towards the world I want to live in. Sure, lax licensed software is fine to use as a free software advocate. But when I develop free software under a lax license, I'm acting against the free software world I want to live in. By allowing proprietary versions of my software to exist, I am acting against my goals. I want to live in a world where all of the software I need to use is free. All of the hardware that runs updatable software also must be free. Otherwise, I'm powerless when the developers' company decides to do something immoral. Having code under the GPLv3 protects us from both of these things, and it makes me sad when people use lax licenses for innovative work.
  - fithisux 10y ago
    I totally agree with you. As far as PhotoShop is concerned, I always could get by FOSS, I have never used this thing. But I am a developer.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      I used to use Photoshop. Most of the killer features are the workflow, which is what GIMP is lacking (GIMP is a bunch of hacked together tools). But that actual toolset is not _that_ complicated if you wanted to pay someone for a year or two to do it.

richardfontana 10y ago

The main reason, I'd say (at least by the time of the Cygnus acquisition) the only reason, for copyright assignment for Cygwin was to ensure that Cygnus/Red Hat was the sole GPL licensor. Thus Cygnus/Red Hat, and only Cygnus/Red Hat, could offer alternative for-fee license arrangements. This was the basis of the business model. Copyright assignment isn't the only means of achieving that result with a GPL-licensed project, but it was the traditional technique and probably the soundest from a legal perspective. Red Hat is phasing out this commercial model for Cygwin. Hence single-licensor GPL licensing is no longer necessary or, I'd say, appropriate. It has nothing directly to do with litigation issues in any general sense. By 2020, I expect that all contributions to Cygwin will be made under the LGPL, meaning that there will potentially be a diversity of LGPL licensors in contrast to the situation prior to today where there was one GPL licensor.

djsumdog 10y ago

I hear you on this. I'm currently working on a writeup about the history of open source and the GPL. The dream of having totally free and open replacements for major tools like Photoshop never really happened. There is a lot of new OSS, but it's all BSDL, Apache, MIT and other license. I'm not like a hard core Stallman person. I don't run libre-firmware laptops from pre-2008 and I enjoy my Gapps on my phone, but I'm not a big fan of startups/monetization of everything. I think a lot of good ideas are strangled by making them commercially viable. Cygwin going LGPL allows it to be more widely used, but overall we're going to see less OSS apps as a result.

cyphar 10y ago
> I hear you on this. I'm currently working on a writeup about the history of open source and the GPL. If you're going to write up a history, please use the term "free software". "Open source" didn't exist for a large part of the history of the free software movement (and I would argue that it was a movement to sabotage discussions about freedom). > The dream of having totally free and open replacements for major tools like Photoshop never really happened. There is a lot of new OSS, but it's all BSDL, Apache, MIT and other license. It did though. Okay, Photoshop is still not overtaken by GIMP. But we have professional free software video editors, development tools, web and database servers, document writers, etc. These days you can run a modern system entirely in freedom, though of course we would love to make more free software to do things even better. > I'm not like a hard core Stallman person. I don't run libre-firmware laptops from pre-2008 and I enjoy my Gapps on my phone, but I'm not a big fan of startups/monetization of everything. I think a lot of good ideas are strangled by making them commercially viable. I'm slowly becoming one, and the main reason why is because I want to work towards the world I want to live in. Sure, lax licensed software is fine to use as a free software advocate. But when I develop free software under a lax license, I'm acting against the free software world I want to live in. By allowing proprietary versions of my software to exist, I am acting against my goals. I want to live in a world where all of the software I need to use is free. All of the hardware that runs updatable software also must be free. Otherwise, I'm powerless when the developers' company decides to do something immoral. Having code under the GPLv3 protects us from both of these things, and it makes me sad when people use lax licenses for innovative work.
- fithisux 10y ago
  I totally agree with you. As far as PhotoShop is concerned, I always could get by FOSS, I have never used this thing. But I am a developer.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    I used to use Photoshop. Most of the killer features are the workflow, which is what GIMP is lacking (GIMP is a bunch of hacked together tools). But that actual toolset is not _that_ complicated if you wanted to pay someone for a year or two to do it.