Cees de Groot <cg at cdegroot.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 16:47, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> > And also - we have vowed earlier to try to keep "Squeak official" under
> > Squeak-L. Relying on the above "license" would definitely break that
> > little "rule".
>
> Was the rule not 'Squeak-L or compatible'? Public domain seems
> compatible to me. A very short license (even if it is just two
> sentences, I think it still constitutes a license) with no conflicting
> terms would qualify as well, I think.

I have considered the rule to be "under Squeak-L". That was after all
the whole point with the dual-license (MIT+Squeak-L) category on SM.

> Note that the stuff below is about the RB, not about SmaCC - the RB
> download page has no terms at all, at least SmaCC comes with something
> that can be understood as a rudimentary license :-).
> 
> > > (RB is just an example; the majority of Smalltalk goodies - including
> > > some of mine ;-) - are distributed this way).
> > I know - I am probably just as big a sinner as everyone else. :-) But we
> > really should try to keep track of these things.
>
> Why? Here's another question: can someone explain me why I should put
> something under, say, MIT or BSD instead of downright dumping it into
> the public domain? (I'm not interested in the SqueakL for my own work -
> too much nonsense in there ;-))

Well, PD doesn't exist in some countries I read somewhere. And you are
also giving up your copyright (compared to if you are using MIT/BSD) -
not sure exactly what that means in practice. AFAIK your rights as the
author can never be "given up". They are yours even if you like it or
not.

Personally I like MIT. Of course, it may be better if the license also
included some form of clause saying that it is irrevocable - I have
always wondered why that is so uncommon in open source licenses. It
ought to be a crucial thing, or perhaps I am again misunderstanding
everything. :-)

As usual it would be superb if Andrew could enlighten us a bit. :-) I
have searched my "Andrew archives" a bit but don't think he has
explained this before.

regards, Göran