>>>>> "Paolo" == Paolo Bonzini <bonzini at gnu.org> writes:

Paolo> This is not a random person volunteering to answer licensing at gnu.org
Paolo> e-mails.  It is the FSF "licensing clerk" that answered me.

And that's still not legally binding in a way that makes me (or apparently
others) feel comfortable.

Here's the only two ways out of this tangle:

1) FSF could *formally* issue a *legal* document that amends the LGPL
specifically for GNU Smalltalk, although I'm not sure that would actually make
any difference, or if it would even be possible for existing code.  This can't
just be "the FSF licensing clerk".  It needs to be officially issued by the
board.

2) The owners of the GST code could *dual* license their source (as I
suggested a while back) so that it would have both the LGPL and a
Squeak-core-compatible license.

Until then, I think we've now clearly demonstrated that FSF is still
hardlining the LPGL on this code, and LGPL would be infectious if attached to
the Squeak core.  This is not acceptable for most Squeak developers.

I wouldn't be so adamant about this if there wasn't any interesting in GST.
But I *can't* look at GST *and* develop for Squeak core (and I do have a goal
of contributing to the 3.11 release somehow).  There's no legal way to do that
right now.  *Any* derived work (arguably including looking at it, and coming
up with something similar) could give the FSF the grounds for an ownership
lawsuit, and that would be very bad to Squeak.  So either the FSF needs to
explicitly waive those rights in perpetuity, or the GST distro needs to be
relicensed.

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