On Thu, 2009-07-23 at 00:28 +0300, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> on a recent SOB meeting someone recalled the idea of adding a
> 'license' field to method stamps.
> I proposed this maybe a year ago, but at that time, it was seem to
> have a short life period, because of upcoming Spoon release, which
> contains a full method history and supports a much better organized
> method history/author/license tracking.
> 
> In our current state, when we have a /trunk , we need, however some
> kind of assurance that all submissions going to trunk is
> license-clean.
> So, it is like that proposed change gives us a quick & fast recipe how
> to assure that.
> 
> Please review  the mantis entry: http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6993
> 
> And lets discuss openly, the pros and cons of this change.
> 

Thanks for bringing this up Igor.  After discussing it in the meeting I
find I have questions and concerns about this proposal.

It is my understanding that once you load this change and then accept
the license query that every method modification results in labeling the
license of the method as MIT.  Is there any way to override this?

Let's say I'm working on some code that is not license clean and am
preparing to package it separately so it can be removed from the core
image.  In that work I may have to modify some methods to clarify the
separation from other code.  While doing so I'm tagging methods as MIT
when in fact I may have no right to make that change.

As an alternate scenario let's say I'm developing a new proprietary
product and decide I wish to test it with the most recent version of
Squeak to be sure that I can release it using that version when it is
ultimately released.  I find a problem or two and fix them and save a
new version of the package.  Assuming at some earlier point I had
installed the method stamp change and agreed to the MIT license and time
went by and I simply forgot about it, then I could have just
unintentionally mis-licensed my changes and not even be aware of it.

Also, don't class declarations need licensing?

Ultimately I believe that marking this at the method annotation level is
entirely the wrong granularity and the wrong timing.  In my opinion this
should be done at the package level and at the point when a package
version is saved or uploaded.  Could we not add some annotation to
packages for this and have the opportunity at the time when a package
comment is recorded to make choices about licensing?

Ken
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