1README for license conditions of the Heirloom Toolchest 2======================================================= 3 4The Heirloom Toolchest is derived from a variety of sources; the 5respective licensing terms can be found in the other files in this 6directory; in addition, each source file contains the license terms 7of the original author at its top. 8 9All newly written code is put under a zlib-style license (except for 10additions to the GPL and LGPL code in awk and libuxre). The rationale 11is that for something distributed as widely as Unix code, any license 12that requires more than naming the author would only cause annoyance. 13 14In effect, this means that commercial Unix vendors who already have a 15Unix source code license can use nearly all of this code without being 16forced to mention it in other places than the source code files. 17 18However, if you work for such a vendor, don't do so. Instead, convince 19the management to release at least the utility source. There is really 20nothing to keep secret about it to have an advantage over competitors, 21as any person or company can simply use the source of this or another 22toolchest to have comparable functionality. So by releasing the source 23to your version, you lose nothing, but you will make your users happy 24since they can use it as a reference. And happy users also mean more 25money in the end. 26 27Gunnar Ritter 9/22/03 28