IANAL, so, to paraphrase a well known entertainer, "it depends on what the
meaning of 'owns' is."  The license, I believe, still belongs to Apple, so
that meaning of ownership is fairly clear.

But 'own' can also mean 'who gets paid for it,' and the license is pretty
clear about that too, summarized on the Squeak homepage as:

"You are allowed to change Squeak, write extensions to Squeak, build an
application in Squeak, and include some or all of Squeak with your products.
You may distribute all of these things along with Squeak, or portions of
Squeak, for free or for money. However, you must distribute these things
under a license that protects Apple in the way described in this license.

"If you modify any of the methods of class objects (or their relationships)
that come with Squeak (as opposed to building on top of the classes in the
release), you must post the modifications on a web site or otherwise make
them available for free to others, just as has been done with Squeak. The
same is true if you port Squeak to another machine or operating system - you
must post your port on a web site or otherwise make it available for free to
others under the same license terms."

Boycotting Squeak seems a little like holding your breath when you walk past
a proscribed business just in case some of the air might have blown across
their property.

Gary Fisher



----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Schmiedl" <s at xss.de>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 12:09 PM
Subject: owner of squeak


> Hi,
>
> over at ruby-talk I saw the following claim:
>
> > I have noticed the "Pick-Axe" book, "Programming Ruby,"  while looking
> > for new Java and XML books, but I actually went looking for a Java
> > replacement when Sun Microsystems, sadly, made the Life Decisions
> > (http://www.fightpp.org/) boycott list as a supporter of Planned
> > Parenthood. (SmallTalk failed because it's expensive and the owner of
> > Squeak Smalltalk, Disney, is on the same boycott list. I avoid the
> > culture of death as much as possible, since I hope that God will bless
> > my work and fortunes.
>
>
> Please ignore philosophy, religion and politics, but tell me,
> who, right now, is the "owner of squeak"?
>
> s.
>
> --
> Stefan Schmiedl
> EDV-Beratung, Programmierung, Schulung
> Loreleystr. 5, 94315 Straubing, Germany
> Tel. (0 94 21) 74 01 06
> Public Key: http://xss.de/stefan.public
>
> shhhh ... I can't hear my code!
>
>