Freeing Squeak (license-wise)

Alan Kay Alan.Kay at squeakland.org
Fri Mar 14 16:18:45 UTC 2003


Look folks, I'm not at all in any way in control of this list, and I 
don't want to be. I'm just trying to point out that for any issue 
there is a point in which some party can take action against another 
(this is one of the ways that laws get tested and sometimes changed, 
sometimes even for the better, sometimes people even decide to follow 
the new law). I'm not saying to desist here: the open source 
community that is rallying around Squeak gets to decide what to do 
with what's on squeak.org (that's my theory of open source). So it's 
up to you. From my standpoint it would really be annoying to provoke 
any legal tie ups in a system whose main interest (in my opinion) is 
to bootstrap something much better. However, there are many other 
ways to make a bootstrap kernel, so it's mainly the time delays and 
loss of momenta that concern me.

P.S. Think of just how many bad things *could* happen to you in the 
next 12 hours. Some people are so anxious and oversensitive to 
diastrous possibilities (no matter how small) that they are paralyzed 
into inaction. Most people accept the actual probabilities of bad 
stuff and get on with their life.

Cheers,

Alan

At 10:32 PM +0300 3/13/03, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
>[constraint is only fonts]
>Not quite. The main constraint as far as I'm concerned, is that Squeak
>will never be on Debian, with it's current license. It won't appear on
>Advogato. I won't be able to sell projects using it where the client
>requires either an exclusive license or a free one.
>
>All of these may seem trivial now, but they mean we're getting farther
>from a small but increasingly important part of the world of computing.
>The friendly part.
>
>Again, I do accept your assessment of the risk, and I won't do a thing
>to trigger it unless Alan says so. But are you sure the status quo *is*
>viable?
>
>Daniel
>
>"John W. Sarkela" <sarkela at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>  On Thursday, March 13, 2003, at 05:56 AM, Alan Kay wrote:
>>  > I don't think that you have a good model here of how things work. I
>>  > think Andrew would agree if I called the US a "litigous society"
>>  > (people like to sue each other and do), so almost anything is
>>  > actionable regardless of any logic or prior art or agreements. This is
>>  > why "less is more" in general. The question is very often not who is
>>  > right but who has the larger resources. Who can tie the the other
>>  > party up and get injunctions, etc.?
>>  >
>>  > I'm just advising you to be very careful about all of this.
>>  >
>>  > Alan
>>  >
>>
>>  I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv.
>>  But Alan's point is really sound.
>>
>>  This is not an exercise in code refactoring. Disney's lawyers are
>>  among the most vicious of litigators in the multinational corporate
>>  world. Did I mention they have extraordinarily deep pockets?
>>
>>  Also note that even though Disney hosted Squeak Central for
>>  a period, the license constraints are with Apple and Microsoft,
>>  *not* Apple and Disney. Did I mention that Microsoft has deep
>>  pockets and a history of sequestering all competitive technologies?
>>  I've heard that they have pretty good lawyers too.
>>
>>  A sweetheart of a license was granted to Squeak at a time when
>>  there were few who could see commercial potential in it.
>>  It would be prudent to work within the framework of the
>>  existing license agreement. The only constraint is with
>>  respect to the Apple and Microsoft fonts.
>>
>>  This was very much at the core of the Squeak World Tour
>>  strategy. Keep the license unchanged, add an attachment
>>  that clearly indicates that the constraining IP, ie the fonts,
>>  had been completely eliminated from the image.
>>
>>  Whatever the outcome, we all share the consequences.
>>
>>  John Sarkela
>>
>>  > -----
>>  >
>>  > At 2:39 PM +0100 3/13/03, Cees de Groot wrote:
>>  >> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1;
>>  >>	protocol="application/pgp-signature";
>>  >> boundary="=-lNaNAcmGgIvCAv7xCAiu"
>>  >>
>>  >> Hi Alan,
>  > >>
>>  >> On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 14:07, Alan Kay wrote:
>>  >>>  Consider the potential opening the can of worms, waking the sleeping
>>  >>>  dog, raising the lid of Pandora's box (or paste your favorite
>>  >>>  metaphor here) .....
>>  >>>
>>  >> You've made that argument before, and the refutation is always the
>  > >> same
>>  >> - basically, there are no dogs to awake: whatever happens, we'll have
>>  >> the stuff at least under the Squeak-L. The worst thing that can happen
>>  >> is that Apple and/or Disney slam the door on re-licensing. At least we
>>  >> will know where we are then, can forget about getting back to these
>>  >> discussions for the coming fivehundred years (I'm just extrapolating
>>  >> US
>>  >> Congress' copyright extensions here ;-)), and continue with our daily
>>  >> business.
>>  >>
>>  >> Unless you know something we're unaware of, so far...
>>  >>
>>  >> Regards,
>>  >>
>>  >> Cees
>>  >>
>>  >> Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc
>>  >> Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part
>>  >>
>>  >> Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:signature.asc 94 (????/----)
>>  >> (00091550)
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > --
>>  >


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