Greetings;

Lots of good discussion, but the main point I was trying to make 
hang-fired.  Let me try again.

In the US legal system, there are civil and commercial rights granted by 
the government.  Most of those rights do not exist in a passive state - 
they must be *asserted* by a right holder to be considered in-force.  For 
instance:

I can be pulled over at any time by Law Enforcement and asked to submit to 
a full body cavity strip search.  If I do not assert my right of 
unreasonable search and seizure, then the search and its results are 
considered legal, even if afterwards I decide that the cops went 
overboard.  I *must* assert my rights at the point of transgression, 
otherwise they are considered voluntarily waived.  (Other than a Miranda 
warning, the authorities are under no obligation to protect or assert your 
rights.)

Now look at "assertion" in Business Law.  If I am the copyright holder of 
the name "McDonalds", and someone opens a competing establishment of the 
same name, I am required to legally enforce my copyright if I wish it to 
remain in-force.  It is incumbent upon me to legally defend encroachment on 
my copyright by bringing a lawsuit against that competitor.  If I 
*knowingly* allow that competitor to use my copyright (property) without 
contest, then I forfeit the right of exclusive ownership for that 
copyright.  This applies not just to copyrights, but to all other forms of 
Intellectual Property as well.

This is not just a legal technicality.  The idea of *assertion* of 
ownership derives from English common law.  (Think eminent domain in 
property law.)

What follow here forward are my opinions:

1.) Disney is not going to come in and sue the pants off all the Squeak 
developers in the world.  Why?  Because for the last two years (at least) 
this has been a project that is both publicized and in plain sight for 
anyone to see.  If Disney felt their IP were being encroached they, were 
obligated to bring suit years ago.  Even if Disney wanted to waste money 
litigating Squeak now, there's a good chance you could fight and win the 
suit. (Using pro-bono legal help from the EFF or some other friendly 
party.)  Disney would have a difficult time explaining in court why they 
didn't intercede years earlier if their IP was being encroached.  More 
pragmatically, I think the Mouse has bigger legal headaches with trying to 
hold on to their Pooh franchise...

(All of the aforementioned also applies to the SCO lawsuit against IBM.  If 
SCO thought Linux open source had encroached on their IP, they should have 
brought suit years ago.  The whole affair smells like covert FUD by the 
anti open source community.)

2.) All of the above applies also to Apple.

3.) Squeak *does not* have a license.  It only has "CYA" terms and 
provision for the Apple portions.  Nothing else.  Exhibit A is too vague, 
and would be of little help in any IP defense (from Disney, Apple, or any 
other past Contributor).

So here's my main point:

If Squeak is to grow towards a broader audience, a new license agreement is 
a *urgent imperative*.  Until we define and assert the terms of use for 
Squeak (including its open source provisions), any attempts at 
commercializing or productizing derivative works is impossible.  Cees is 
correct that without a strong license, there are *no* viable business 
models for Squeak, period.

It is critical to post a license that unambiguously asserts everything 
herein to be an open source project (with the Apple disclaimers if you 
like).  This also includes asserting that harvested contributions come 
under Squeak open source terms, along with Contributors relinquishing all 
subsequent claims to rights of ownership.  This would be a minimum to start 
with...

I am asking (pleading) for members of Squeak C to consider creation of a 
new Squeak License a priority.  If I'm being a pain in the ass about this, 
I apologize.  But I can't stand to let this topic die away (again) with no 
action taken.  Let's find an reasonably acceptable boilerplate and slap it 
up there - it can always be changed later.

The future of Croquet is significantly affected by all this too...

Regards;

Bill Cole

At 08:22 PM 3/14/03 -0500, you wrote:

>Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:17:07 -0600
>From: Jimmie Houchin <jhouchin at texoma.net>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
>         <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Re: Freeing Squeak (license-wise)
>Message-ID: <3E7254E3.6080909 at texoma.net>
>In-Reply-To: <a0510031aba97b6ffefb5@[192.168.0.55]>
>References: <0HBQ009MGDB2G7 at mxout2.netvision.net.il>
>         <1047645996.32741.148.camel at home.home.cdegroot.com>
>         <a05100318ba97aa91b570@[192.168.0.55]>
>         <1047659415.22093.435.camel at home.home.cdegroot.com>
>         <a0510031aba97b6ffefb5@[192.168.0.55]>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Precedence: list
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
>         <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Message: 21
>
>There have been some interesting, valid and true points made in this
>thread from a variety of different perspectives.
>
>Most all of us here would like to see Squeak with a cleaner (language)
>and freer license. The license we currently have is not bad, but has
>some ugly spots.
>
>As Alan, Andrew and others have maintained Apple, Disney, and whomever
>copyright holder can pursue legal action against Squeak regardless of
>license or language in the license or even merit.
>
>As Alan also states this is a true situation regardless of development
>language, environment or system you choose to develop or base a business
>upon.
>
>Even though this is the case, most here would still like to see a better
>license. However there are probably wise and prudent steps towards that
>goal.
>
>Despite what Apple et al can do, with regard to Squeak we have no reason
>to believe they will do. Currently there is little to gain. IMO.
>Maybe naively, I don't see them as the bad guys.
>
>The worst case scenario has been stated.
>I personally don't see that happening. At least I hope not.
>
>An offer to form a Foundation with Yet Another Society.
>And there still is the opportunity to form our own non-profit corp or
>foundation. Whichever direction the community thinks is best.
>
>It has also been stated that a significant part of Squeak has been
>authored externally from Apple or Disney.
>
>It seems that to me a prudent course of action to accomplish the goals
>we want could be something like this...
>(number does not form order, merely a list)
>
>1. Form a Foundation which can be the maintainer of a new Squeak license
>and copyright holder for code individual or corporations which to assign.
>
>2. Create a new license for the direction we would like Squeak to move.
>New code and code with which the copyright holders would like to change
>over to.
>
>3. As we strip the image and move towards SM and the new 3.6+ images,
>ascertain ownership of code and work towards relicensing as much code as
>possible with the new license.
>
>4. Know what code remains under the existing SqL either via Apple or Disney.
>
>5. Contact Apple to make effort to relicense, preferably with the new
>community license. Disney too, as necessary.
>
>6. If relicensing is successful, enjoy.
>     If not, work towards using Squeak to bootstrap the new community
>licensed version.
>
>7. Enjoy Squeak regardless.
>     We cannot control or predict Apple or Disney.
>     The likelihood of action via Apple or Disney is probably low.
>     (As Alan said?)
>     We can control how we proceed from here to get to where we want to go.
>
>Am I assessing the situation accurately?
>Does this sound like a reasonable course of action?
>Am I forgetting anything?
>
>There is much we can do. There is much we are in control of.
>Lets be positively proactive and work towards the end we want.
>
>We can work towards much of the above while Cees awaits replys from his
>contacts at Apple. If further discussions are then needed we can be in a
>better position.
>
>Thoughts, opinions. :)
>
>Jimmie Houchin
>