[Squeakfoundation]Re: Sublicensing seems possible

[Andreas Raab]

> That could actually be a problem in some cases. Say developer X 
> releases some system changes as required but insists on the GPL. They 
> have been publically released but are effectively unusable within the 
> main system. And I suppose that in a sense it would 'block' us from 
> implementing the same thing unless one could prove it clean. Ugly. 
> Perhaps we need to assert that 'publically available' is 
> interpreted as 'usable in the main public image'.

I disagree. If there are people who have RMS' point of view about free
software they should be allowed to do good stuff and place it under any
license they want. Contrary to RMS' that's my understanding of "freedom"
(but not my understanding of "Squeak community"). Changing this, effectively
making Squeak-L viral, would be in direct violation of the goals of Squeak-L
- it's the *ideas* that count not the artifacts.

Regarding "blocking". Not even the GPL can prevent you from reimplementing
ideas you find in free software. So you can't use the code - so what? It's
unfortunate but nothing that would prevent someone from implementing the
same idea in a fraction of the time needed to come up with it. As with all
things, having the original idea in the first place is the truly complex
act. If that idea is shared it's typically trivial to re-implement it. 

Quoting a question from SIGGRAPH paper reviews: "Could a skilled
grad-student implement the system/process based on the paper?". If you get a
"No" here you're out.

Cheers,
  - Andreas