Hi--
I'm reposting, with the important addition of footnote [4], a section of a message I wrote recently in another thread ("The land of the Mice, a bedtime story"), for easier reference in the squeak-dev archives.
Thanks to Ken Causey on the Squeak IRC channel[1] for suggesting this.
thanks again,
-C
***
We are in the final stages of discussion with the Software Freedom Law Center[2] about Squeak joining as a member project of their Software Freedom Conservancy[3]. By "final" I mean that we have a legal agreement in front of us, we're discussing slight modifications to it, and we're about to sign it. After the board and the SFLC are happy with it, we will forward it to squeak-dev. We intend to sign it within a couple of weeks after that. I'm acting as the liaison between the board and the SFLC. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ron Teitelbaum again for suggesting and advocating working with the SFLC.
If you are surprised that we've done this without enough public discussion (although we did mention it on squeak-dev at multiple points in the past[4]), again please accept our apologies. We believe we are doing what you elected us to do.
Please do follow the SFLC and Conservancy links to remind yourself why this will be a good arrangement. Basically, they will handle the legal stuff, including being able to accept tax-exempt donations on Squeak's behalf. Stay tuned for the minute details, most likely after the board meeting on 18 July, where we will have SFLC counsel as a guest.
Yes, this is all taking much longer than any of us would like. But it's happening! Zoom out a little bit and remember some of the things we've (finally) accomplished:
- The original Squeak release is now available to us under better license terms (that took a lot of personal cajoling on the part of myself and several others)
- We are very close to having written consent to new terms on behalf of each subsequent contributor to Squeak.
- We are on the verge of allying the project with an organization that will make us legally viable.
thanks,
-C
[1] #squeak on irc.freenode.net. See http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5888 [2] http://www.softwarefreedom.org [3] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org [4] Ken points out that he can't find mention of our intent to join the Conservancy in the squeak-dev archives. I apologize for not providing references; I won't make such a statement again without supporting URLs. At any rate, I reiterate the apology in that paragraph. :) I'm also hoping that we can get through the process of legal reification without the unproductive email storms of ages past. :)