Chronos

stéphane ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Thu Jul 21 12:04:56 UTC 2005


Janko

this is not my point.
My point is tthat if we have a proliferation of license we are DEAD.
Already with Squeak-L this is DIFFICULT to get accepted elsewhere.  
Believe me I spent hours argumenting.

Stef


On 21 juil. 05, at 11:19, Janko Mivšek wrote:


> Hi Alan,
>
> It seems that I am first one who won't complain but congratulate  
> you for your work, which I think is important one for a Smalltalk  
> community as a whole!
>
> Smalltalkers need to learn to give credit to those who deserve,  
> give a credit first and then complain! We need to encourage such a  
> work, not press it down but complaining. A healthy criticism is of  
> course needed too, but it should be such, a healthy and encouraging  
> one!
>
> These were just my few thoughts ..
>
> Keep going on!
> Janko
>
> Alan Lovejoy wrote:
>
>
>> stéphane:
>> 1. Hernan Wilkinson: No fair pointing me at Hernan's work when a  
>> Google
>> search turns up nothing--especially since there's no way I can  
>> travel from
>> California to Europe any time soon.  So tell me more.
>> 2. The Chronos License: In case no one's noticed, the current  
>> version of the
>> license also forbids any commercial use.  Of course, I'll be  
>> removing that
>> restriction once I've completed the documentation, implemented  
>> leap seconds,
>> and completed a final beta period.  ETA of Release 1.0 is no later  
>> than the
>> end of the year (hey, I have a full time job that doesn't involve  
>> Smalltalk
>> coding.)
>> When Release 1.0 is published, I will be revising the license.   
>> The revision
>> will certainly remove the restriction against commercial use, but  
>> there's no
>> reason I couldn't make other changes also at that time, should I  
>> become
>> convinced that I should do so.  What I'm trying to say is that  
>> there's time
>> for those of you who strongly object to the "no porting outside of
>> Smalltalk" clause to convince me to change my mind.
>> However, at this point I've heard from exactly four people who  
>> possibly
>> object. One of them recently wrote me for permission to port to a  
>> particular
>> non-Smalltalk programming language--which I have granted in  
>> writing (the
>> letter's in the mail as of today.) Whether that addresses his  
>> objection or
>> not he hasn't said.  I'm counting Howard Stearns as one of the four,
>> although all he said was  "You may have trademark issues in  
>> addition to the
>> license controversy," which doesn't actually make his opinion on  
>> the matter
>> explicit.  So perhaps there are only two people who object:  
>> Andreas Raab and
>> Stéphane Ducasse.
>> Nevertheless, I feel the objections raise significant issues that  
>> deserve
>> further discussion--and I don't mean just in the context of  
>> Chronos. The
>> issues are much larger than that.  I don't want any such  
>> discussion to focus
>> on Chronos per se--partly because it deserves to be a generic  
>> discussion,
>> and partly because I'm really trying to avoid overly publicizing  
>> Chronos at
>> this time (it's not done yet.) At this time, I'd prefer that  
>> Chronos only be
>> seriously used by those for whom date/time computations are of high
>> interest--and even then, only for purposes of evaluation. That's  
>> why my
>> initial post said it was a "low key announcement."
>> So, given the subject of this thread, I'm going to close without  
>> saying
>> anything further right now, but will post a new topic where the  
>> general
>> licensing issues can be discussed (although not today--I have  
>> other business
>> that must be attended to.)  Of course, others are welcome to start  
>> such a
>> topic on their own, should they be so inclined.
>> --Alan
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf  
>> Of stéphane
>> ducasse
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 2:10 AM
>> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
>> Subject: Re: Chronos
>> But alan
>> why do not you provide it as MIT and you can still port it to Java
>> and sell it? I know that this is naive but
>> when I see the hell of the licenses around and got systematically
>> bitten by it.
>> I think that in squeak we should have MIT and Squeak-L: look at
>> Squeaksource, smallwiki, seaside, croquet, tweak.....
>> the new network rewrite, compiler....will all be like that. Else I
>> think that people should not really use your package.
>> By the way you will be interested by the forthcoming talk at esug
>> about another time package developed by hernan wilkinson.
>> It seems that their package will be open too, so may be it would be
>> good to see how to produce the best of your packages.
>> Or at least have a look.
>> Stef
>> On 20 juil. 05, at 4:05, Alan Lovejoy wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Brian Rice [water at tunes.org] napical:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Eek! That means I can't port it to Slate (http://slate.tunes.org/).
>>>> What's the point of that?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jul 19, 2005, at 5:06 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Looks interesting, but I sure hope you'll get your licensing terms
>>>> in order. In particular this:
>>>>
>>>>    "4. You must agree not to port or translate Chronos into any
>>>> programming language whose syntax, semantics and computational
>>>> model are not substantially compliant to the ANSI Smalltalk
>>>> Language Specification.  Porting Chronos to non-Smalltalk
>>>> programming languages is strictly prohibited.  However, you are
>>>> welcome to enter into negotiations with the copyright owner for
>>>> permission to port Chronos to non-Smalltalk programming languages.
>>>> In some cases, permission may be granted at no cost or other
>>>> encumberance."
>>>>
>>>> Unless you are trying to find out whether anyone actually reads the
>>>> license (in which case you've earned yourself a pat on the back for
>>>> adding a really creative little clause to your license ;-) I think
>>>> you should seriously rethink the attitude express by this clause.
>>>> Surely you realize that niche languages like Smalltalk would be
>>>> hurt more than other systems if everybody would pick up this
>>>> attitude and have do-not-port-to-languages-i-don't-like clauses.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>  - Andreas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Calm down guys.
>>>
>>> Firstly, permit me to call your attention to the following two
>>> sentences of
>>> the license:
>>>
>>> "However, you are welcome to enter into negotiations with the
>>> copyright
>>> owner for  permission to port Chronos to non-Smalltalk programming
>>> languages.  In some cases, permission may be granted at no cost or
>>> other
>>> encumberance."
>>>
>>> Of course, the license says nothing that specifies the basis on
>>> which I
>>> would decide whether or not to grant permission to port.  So let me
>>> state it
>>> here:  Although Andreas is partially correct that one of my
>>> motivations is
>>> to deny the functionality of Chronos to be ported to certain other
>>> languages
>>> because of my partisan dislike of the languages preferred by the
>>> Curly-Braced Horde, that's not the primary motivation.  The primary
>>> motivation is money.  I want to preserve my right to port Chronos  
>>> to a
>>> widely-used language (e.g., Java) and sell it for money.  That
>>> motivation is
>>> not operative in the case of languages such as Slate, Self or
>>> Haskell, and
>>> so I would grant permission for a port to such languages without
>>> hesitation.
>>>
>>> However, because I want to be able to say that no one has
>>> permission to port
>>> who was not given such permission in writing, you must obtain  
>>> written
>>> permission.  If Brian is serious about porting Chronos to Slate, he
>>> should
>>> send me his contact details, and I will send him porting  
>>> permission in
>>> writing.
>>>
>>> --Alan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> -- 
> Janko Mivšek
> Svetovalec za informatiko
> EraNova d.o.o.
> Ljubljana, Slovenija
> www.eranova.si
> tel: 01 514 22 55
> gsm: 031 674 565
>
>
>





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