Serge Stinckwich <Serge.Stinckwich at info.unicaen.fr> wrote:
> No, Alex. I don't think so ... or i'm also an extremist ;-)
> Most of others open-source conference are like that.
> Maybe just idealists like most of the people of the open-source 
> movement. Right now, with his licence, Squeak is no usable in some 
> country like Cuba, so it could be an ethic problem for some of us.

Why can't they?  Cubans can perfectly well go to www.squeak.org and
download it.

You see, the details are much murkier than the busybodies make them out
to be.  The two challenges raised (export and indemnification) are about
obscure legalese.   If you really must go there, ponder that since many
Americans have contributed to Squeak, that US export regulations
probably apply to Squeak anyway -- whether or not the clause is there. 
Then ponder that this also applies to trade regulations from every other
country whose citizens are involved with Squeak.  Ugh!   I think you'll
decide it's wiser not to jump to conclusions about the fine print.

It's much better to listen to the friendly lawyers than to wade through
this ourselves.  Our own lawyers were asked to come up with a legally
viable open-source license and Squeak-L is what they gave us.  OSI, a
relative newcommer, would have done well to ally with our guys and ask
them for advice.


Alexandre writes:
> The squeak licence is a problem:
>   - We cannot present Squeak at RMLL
>   - Squeak cannot be distributed with most of the linux.

Actually, most Linux people don't care.  RedHat,  Gentoo, and Slackware
all include Squeak.  Drifting further afield, FreeBSD includes it, too. 
Is there any distro other than Debian that rejects Squeak-L ?

Debian is truly extremist.  They have also rejected the GNU
documentation license and the Mozilla Public License.  Just before I
unsubscribed from debian-legal, they were about to reject *all* of the
Creative Commons licenses.



Jim Gettys writes:
> Apple has revised license terms on *some* of their other open source
> software in response to community concerns recently.

That is great to know.  If we ever go down that path (Google for "ask
for APSL?") then now we know that others have already succeeded there.

For now, though, it sounds like the best strategy is to switch over to
Croquet.   Croquet is highly compatible with Squeak, I hear, so our code
should transfer just fine....

Lex