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