Hi Hilaire--

 > What about the free software foundation, may be they can provide input
 > in a quicker way.

      Well, I'll bring up that suggestion again at the next Squeak 
leadership meeting (on 2007-12-19), but we weren't keen on it the last 
time. The main nice thing about joining the Software Freedom Conservancy 
is it will give us ongoing access to legal counsel and a tax-exempt 
donation mechanism, without having to administer it ourselves (and with 
the ability to start our own completely independent organization later 
if we desire). Also, the community has so far reached consensus around 
an MIT-style license, and not the GPL or LGPL, so I suspect the FSF 
wouldn't be quite so interested in us.

      No one is happy with how long this is taking (and it really began 
several years ago with the first serious conversations between 
Viewpoints and Apple), but the leadership still agrees that we should 
continue on this path.

      For what it's worth, I have been very encouraged by my recent 
exchanges with the Conservancy. I'd like to thank everyone again for 
their patience. Realistically, I think the next Squeak leadership 
elections (in February 2008) will be the next time to consider another 
approach, should one be necessary.


      thanks again,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]