Göran Krampe  <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org> said:
>PS. One final thing: Sure, better code is what we need. But if we postpone the
>license issue into the future and Squeak suddenly (hey, who knows?) turns into
>the hippest thing since Java - then it will be too late. The dragons will
>awaken. And then I will not want to stand there and see them closing it all down
>and realize that we could have done something about it earlier.
>
Well, SqueakL is much freer than Java was ever licensed. Note that
Debian does not include Java in either the Sun or IBM incarnations as of
today. That doesn't seem to have stopped Java from spreading, somehow. 

Please lets keep this discussion clean. SqueakL, and I'm sure most
people agree here, is quite a nice license for Squeak - workable enough
for commercial projects, free enough for the rest. It is quite clear
that Apple and Disney have published their works under the SqueakL, so
I am not at all afraid that suddenly the clocks can be turned back. 

Which leaves us with exactly ONE sticking point: it's not Open Source as
per the OSD and (therefore) Debian does not like it.

Debian does not like qmail/djbdns/daemontools either, but still I can
reasonably simply install it on my box - it's just a bit indirect, b/c I
have to download the source packages and compile them. Debian does not
like the Sun JDK licensing, but still I can reasonably simply install it
on my box - edit my /etc/apt/sources.list and do 'apt-get install
jdk-1.4.1' or whatever. 

Now, Daniel brought up a really valid point where this hurts more
than average: various groups are building Linux-based (and then often
Debian-based) distributions targeted at educational institutions. There
are two ways to get into these distributions:
1. Rewrite Squeak under a different license;
2. Contact these people (SEUL-EDU, Schoolforge, ...), explain the
situation, and work out a solution with them.

Personally, I'm prepared only to put work into #2. 

-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
Cogito ergo evigilo