Hello Squeakers,
As an author of AIDA/Web (http://www.eranova.si/aida/) I
like to clarify a bit the license issues mentioned in this thread.
To be honest, I just didn't care about those license
problems too much and AIDA was released under for me in that moment most appropriate license. Also, here we don't complicate so much about licensing issues so I really need help from you o find a more appropriate license.
My intention with AIDA is to help spread Smalltalk in web
applications and on the other side that community help me developing AIDA further. We all can then make money providing services and custom solutions based on AIDA. > > Therefore, I'm willing to change license to be more lawyer proof :))
Please help me find such a license. Can we agree for a
common license for all Smalltalk OS projects? Should I start with LGPL?
Three ways to go:
BSD-based:
Your product is so similar in nature to the Apache server, and Apache's license is so reasonable, that it rates to be a good fit. http://www.apache.org/LICENSE.txt I note that this license (the so-called "old-BSD" license retains the "advertising clause" which RMS considers to be a "bad thing." He does approve of the far simpler "new BSD" license http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.3/COPYRIGHT5.html, which would serve just as well.
Squeak-L:
An alternative license, which is also highly liberal and decidedly Smalltalk friendly, is the Squeak license. http://www.squeak.org/license.html, removing the Apple-specific terminology, since your product is not bound by Apple code at its base. Squeak-L, like Mozilla and Apple's Open Source license, requires publication of source code to modifications, regardless of whether the changes have been distributed to others.
However, Squeak-L is probably not compatible with GPL code, while BSD or the apache licenses certainly are.
IMHO, until the community settles around a Smalltalk- (image-) based license (essentially GPL, solving the linking issues), BSD is probably more than adequate. A fair number of us (myself included) affirmatively like the requirement to publish source to modifications, although RMS considers such a limitation to make software "unfree."
Other licenses:
LGPL may well be adequate for these purposes. I will need to look at it with this question in mind, but it may well serve the purpose. I'll take another look and see if anything there is hurtful to a Smalltalk "in-image" product.
Disclaimer: Please note that I offer only general information and am not in a position, one way or the other, to offer legal advises for your particular purposes. Sound legal advice requires a detailed understanding of the particular facts of your project, and the application of the law to those facts, which I have not undertaken here. If you require legal advice, you should rely on the advice of counsel you have retained for that purpose.