Well, suppose you were doing your stuff in Java and Sun went belly 
up? Suppose you were using OpenGL and Microsoft (which recently 
bought the Silicon Graphics patents, etc.,) decides to stop use of 
OpenGL and try to just get 3Ders to care about the MS hooks to 3D on 
their platforms? What if the actual entanglements with Linus' kernel 
and GPL and other stuff actually got interpreted in a slightly 
different light regarding what gets polluted and what doesn't (i.e. 
along the lines that MS is advocating). There are zillions of 
potential pitfalls from vendors just waiting for businessfolks. 
However, ....

It seems to me that opensource even in a litigious era that has no 
really good foundational precedents for law and language that is 
clear about IP, is still the best way to go. One of the things the US 
learned (to a limited extent admittedly) from the prohibition of 
alcohol era in the 20s is that it is a classic blunder to make a law 
that can't be enforced and most people are willing to break.

Cheers,

Alan

At 5:30 PM +0100 3/14/03, Cees de Groot wrote:
>Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1;
>	protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-iie3QhabkM9ROhqzKcOE"
>
>On Fri, 2003-03-14 at 17:19, Alan Kay wrote:
>>  Try a different POV and you'll feel better.
>>
>Please help me. Here I am, a businessman (ok, hypothetical situation
>;-)), that wants to invest a lot of time and money (hypothetical, still)
>into developing stuff on Squeak.
>
>It's a very reasonable POV that Squeak's legal status is largely
>unclear. I'm more than happy with that as a user, as a hacker, and as a
>wannabe teacher. I'm less than happy with that as a business guy
>(especially one with external shareholders - and that's not hypothetical
>in my case - where you have a fiduciary responsibility to them to make
>sure that things like these are taken fare of).
>
>So, please help me with my 'businessman blindness' and tell me how I can
>reconcile Squeak's legal status with building a company on it (or even
>applying it to anything mission-critical).
>
>
>
>Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc
>Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part
>
>Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:signature.asc 111 (????/----) (00091686)


--