Sublicensing

Daniel Vainsencher danielv at netvision.net.il
Sat Aug 16 15:21:33 UTC 2003


Bert Freudenberg <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de> wrote:
> Not Disney. Alan pointed out multiple times that all additions to the 
> base system are not Disney's. The "real stuff" done while SqC was at 
> Disney has never been released publicly. They very strictly 
> distinguished between modifications of the base system which were 
> published, and work building on that involving all kinds of shiny stuff 
> that Disney is famous for (*).
You are ignoring a difference between ownership and licensing. AFAIK,
SqCs public Squeak work during Disney is licensed SqueakL, and therefore
we can share it, but its copyright is Disney owned, and therefore we
can't (for example) relicense it. Only Disney can.

> The great thing is that SqueakL allowed this! You _can_ do serious work 
> with Squeak under the current license. Otherwise Disney's lawyers would 
> have very much objected.
Nobody is arguing about that...

> This whole discussion is very much a tempest in a teacup. To put it into 
> perspective: There is no problem whatsoever with providing downloads of 
> Squeak for Windows or Macintosh or even selling it. There is also no 
> problem with providing downloads for Linux (we will even have RPMs for 
> the next release!). Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Of course not. Except...

> The only issue (apart from weltanschauung) is including Squeak in some 
> OS by default. I doubt Microsoft will do that. Neither will Apple. 
No, there is no legal problem including in MSes or Apple OS. There is a
problem including it in free OSes.

> However, Linux distros might include Squeak by default, and that is an 
> opportunity, because it should get us some publicity. We should work 
> onthat. 
That's exactly what we're after - specifically, we're talking about
inclusion in Debian. They refuse to distribute it at all (even as
non-free software, which they do distribute), because the liability
described by the indemnification clause scares them. Other bodies with
more money or lawyers might feel different (say, Disney or Interval),
but I actually care more about Debian's likes than about Disney's.

> Apple stated they won't release Squeak under APSL because they 
> are not actively involved anymore, so that discussion is moot.
As has been pointed out before, a "no" is a common starting point for
negotiation. If Alan asks, the result might be different. Since they
seem to be very protective of the fonts, we might be smarter to ask
about the relicensing after removing them. We really should issue the
AccuFonts update in 3.6.

> I personally would like to have Squeak under a licence I can pretend to 
> understand, like the two paragraphs of BSD. If Alan could get Steve to 
> approve that, it would be great. But just fixing SqueakL to the extent 
> that OSI approves it (optionally FSF, too) would be sufficient, too. 
> Whatever we can get Apple to do. However, the status quo isn't as bad as 
>   is might sound in this thread.

I don't think the status quo is that bad as a situation - but it stinks
if it is permanent. A situation has arisen where people can live well
using just free software, and I'd like to know that Squeak will one day
be free too.

I agree that a relicense to BSD is better than APSL is better than
SqueakL, which is much better than nothing. But as I pointed out,
whatever Apple does, Squeak won't be free, unless we decide to fix it.

Daniel



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list