Hi,

(I've added squeak-dev to the To: line so someone else can respond)

My unexpert opinion.

Open Source has a very specific meaning and by their meaning
squeak is not Open Source. (notice the Upper Case)

The FSF folks also have a very specific thing in mind and
by their definition Squeak is not Free Software.

I believe that there are three sections of the license
which cause problems with the above groups.

- The fonts.  You can't produce derivative works from the fonts
and you can't charge a fee for the works that contain the fonts.

- Clause 5 - "You agree to indemnify and hold Apple harmless 
from any and all damages..."

- Clause 6 - Export Law Assurances.

This is basically what https://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-list.html
says:

The Squeak license

    As applied to software, this is not a free software license
because it requires all users in whatever country to obey US export
control laws. As applied to fonts, it also does not permit
modification.

    In addition, it has a requirement for users to indemnify the
developer, which is enough to make many users think twice about using
it at all.


Now my current take on the above is:

- Fonts.  We've gotten rid of the origional ones and therefore this
doesn't apply anymore.

- Clause 5 - Well, you can't sue Apple.

- Clause 6 - Unless you plan to have no dealings with the US
you probably have to keep this in mind anyway.    It's suprising
how far the attempts to apply US export laws go, and, one probably
doesn't want to try to be a test case.  Your call though.

There has been some chatter about just ignoring the problem and
releasing squeak under the Croquet license (see
http://www.opencroquet.org/Croquet_Technologies/license.html)
since they have just gone and done that (basically) for Squeak 3.6.

Anyway, there has been a lot of debate over the years on the 
squeak-dev mailing list and there continues to be debate :-)

cheers

bruce


On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 06:57:07PM +0530, Vimal Joseph wrote:
> Hi Bruce O'Neel,
> 
> i found your address on the download page of the project Squeak. I am
> not sure you are the right person to contact for my query. I couldn't
> found whom to contact for issues regarding license of squeak. 
> 
> In the Squeak's home page and related pages, it is written that squeak
> is a open source program. So i downloaded it. But on a search on the net
> I found the following page
> http://sourceforge.net/support/noss_exception.php?group_id=5506 which
> clearly says that squeak is not an open source project. In the fsf.org
> license page also i found that squeak is not a Free Software. 
> 
> I am now totally confused. I really want to use squeak and spread it
> among the teacher community in my place. But if it is a Non Free
> software, i cant do that. Please help me clear this confusion.
> 
> Thanks and Regards,
> 
> Vimal Joseph
> 
> 
> -- 
> Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>
> 

-- 
edoneel at sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org