From russell.allen@firebirdmedia.com Fri Sep 27 22:35:45 2002 From: russell.allen@firebirdmedia.com To: squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Subject: Re: Squeak licensing questions Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 00:54:55 +0000 Message-ID: <199811260054.QAA24407@jasper.he.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============6143927694391032744==" --===============6143927694391032744== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >Dear Squeakers, > >I have a few questions about the Squeak license and was wondering if >people on the list could help me out in getting them answered. >Definitive answers from authoritative source are especially welcome, >however general kibitzing would be of interest to me as well, especially >in terms of pointing out questions I haven't thought to ask. I don't have any inside knowledge of the status of Squeak licences, but I am = trained in IT law :-) I feel that looking more closely at the licencing issues involved in Squeak m= ay=20 be a very good thing to do, for a few reasons: (1) Open source software in general is coming under greater scrutiny now that= =20 commercial enterprises are looking at incorporating it into their products. (2) Copyright law is getting more serious. Criminal offences are increasing,= =20 as is the term (US just increased its term to life + 70 years. Think about=20 that - if someone writes a class in their early 20s and lives til they are 85= ,=20 the source code for that class will be covered by the copyright act for 130=20 years). Like it or loath it, copyright is here to stay, and projects like Squeak whic= h=20 span the gap between fully commercial software such as Windows and fully GNU- protected software need to put in place mechanisms to avoid conflict, and=20 provide security. However, the modular nature of Squeak should make it very easy create these=20 mechanisms. As an example, what about adding copyright information to classes? Each clas= s=20 could have a date, name and a licence number. Every distribution of the Sque= ak=20 core classes could have a document which provides a list of licencing options= ,=20 from GPL to fully commercial. Tools could be provided to browse licences etc. This would enable a commercial distributor to take a Squeak image made up of = seperate packages, and browse all of the classes covered by the Gnu license, = file them out if necessary. Alternatively, a creator could easily identify t= he=20 parts of his image which were under commercial copyright and write GNU=20 replacements. Put the licence document on the Swiki, and allow people to add their own=20 licences. This is just an off-the-cuff suggestion which may cause technical/legal/socia= l=20 criticisms (what fun!)... but it's worth considering to save the Squeak=20 community a lot of problems later on. Russell > >It has been said "Don't worry. Apple has already forgot about it..." in >terms of the license and its enforcement. However that probably won't >cut it with IP lawyers of a major corporation. These are sorts of >questions such a lawyer might ask, and it would be nice to have ready >answers available for anyone contemplating getting Squeak into their >organization. > >-Paul Fernhout >Kurtz-Fernhout Software http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D >Developers of custom software and educational simulations >Creators of the open source Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator >Creators of the StoryHarp(TM) Audioventure Authoring System > > ------------------------------------------------------------ Russell Allen russell.allen(a)firebirdmedia.com Random Quote: "They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." Confucius, Analects. ------------------------------------------------------------ --===============6143927694391032744==--