[ANN] Closure Compiler

Daniel Vainsencher danielv at netvision.net.il
Thu Mar 27 15:22:21 UTC 2003


"Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna at mucow.com> wrote:
> But first we need a consensus for a license.  What shall it be?
> 
> 	a) BSDish?
> 	b) Squeakish with minor repairs?
> 	c) GPLish?
> 	d) dedicationish?
> 
> Moreover, are we constrained in any way by the original Xerox seed 
> license?  (It has been suggested that the Smalltalk-80 image is free 
> for arbitrary relicensing for the blessed seed companies -- is that 
> true in fact?)   Or are we in fact constrained by Apple?
> 
> These will guide our decision.

I think we want a free license, as per DFSG (see below).

Debian, CTAN, OSI and even the FSF [1] consider "free" to mean that the
user has certain freedoms, which are important, and granted by, for
example, BSD. 

For those not familiar with the Debian Free Software Guideline, here are
two extracts [2].

This is the social contract that the DFSG is meant to uphold. I think it
represents what we want for Squeak pretty well -
   1.Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software
   2.We Will Give Back to the Free Software Community
   3.We Won't Hide Problems
   4.Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software
   5.Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards [their use and
distribution will be supported, but they  will not be included in Debian
per se - dvf]

These are the tenets of the DFSG. Note these don't require GPL or other
political licenses -
   1.Free Redistribution
   2.Source Code [must be included]
   3.Derived Works [must be creatable and redistributable]
   4.Integrity of The Author's Source Code [may be preserved, but may
not prevent the above]
   5.No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
   6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
   7.Distribution of License
   8.License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
   9.License Must Not Contaminate Other Software [for example, if the
next version of the GPL insisted that everything in the same medium must
be free software, then that version of the GPL would not be free
software]
  10.Example Licenses [GPL, BSD, ARTISTIC are considered free]

I think we should strive to make the Official Squeak free - exactly so
that it is a stable base for commercial and private development, up to
standards accepted by the wider free software community. If based on a
BSD-like license, this would create none of the problems that GPL does.
If based on a Squeak-L variation that *Debian would accept* that would
be *perfectly acceptable* to me.

Daniel
[1] http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[2] http://www.debian.org/social_contract



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