README (1376B)
1 README for license conditions of the Heirloom Toolchest 2 ======================================================= 3 4 The Heirloom Toolchest is derived from a variety of sources; the 5 respective licensing terms can be found in the other files in this 6 directory; in addition, each source file contains the license terms 7 of the original author at its top. 8 9 All newly written code is put under a zlib-style license (except for 10 additions to the GPL and LGPL code in awk and libuxre). The rationale 11 is that for something distributed as widely as Unix code, any license 12 that requires more than naming the author would only cause annoyance. 13 14 In effect, this means that commercial Unix vendors who already have a 15 Unix source code license can use nearly all of this code without being 16 forced to mention it in other places than the source code files. 17 18 However, if you work for such a vendor, don't do so. Instead, convince 19 the management to release at least the utility source. There is really 20 nothing to keep secret about it to have an advantage over competitors, 21 as any person or company can simply use the source of this or another 22 toolchest to have comparable functionality. So by releasing the source 23 to your version, you lose nothing, but you will make your users happy 24 since they can use it as a reference. And happy users also mean more 25 money in the end. 26 27 Gunnar Ritter 9/22/03