I think there alway will be issues around licensing (and great money for lawyers) until people understand that they need to change the perception on what 'intellectual property' means.
As someone said: nobody pays a license fee to the architect who designed the building each time someone entering it. So why we should pay a software architect for each copy of his software? People should be paid for things they do, not for mass-produced copies of their creation. Making a copy is not an act of creating intellectual property - its just a mechanic process.
2008/11/22 Colin Putney cputney@wiresong.ca:
On 21-Nov-08, at 8:16 AM, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
> "Paolo" == Paolo Bonzini bonzini@gnu.org writes:
Paolo> And to be clear about this once for all, I completely agree with the Paolo> above assessment. Squeak people do need to be careful, even a bit Paolo> paranoid if you want. But implying that you cannot look at GNU Paolo> Smalltalk for fear that you'll glance at its code and be tainted by it, Paolo> goes way beyond paranoia.
Get a legal document from the FSF lawyers that confirms that and holds us permanently harmless, and I'll shut up. Until then, Squeak devs are at risk.
Squeak devs are at risk of what? How much risk is there? Are the attendant benefits worth the risk?
The mere existence of risk isn't very good argument for or against anything
- if it were, we would be fools to get out of bed in the morning.
Colin