>A quick question on the Squeak licence (sorry if this has already been
>discussed on the list, but there doesn't seem to be any way of
>searching the archives): is this compatible with the Debian Free
>Software Guidelines?  http://www.debian.org/social_contract  
>Is there any hope of Squeak being released under GPL?

Eric and Squeakers,
	At least in spirit, the Squeak license (http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/license.html) does comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.  I did notice a couple of differences:

It is OK to charge whatever you want for software built with Squeak.

It is OK to sell things made with Squeak that do not include source code.  (But the Squeak license must be included in that license.)

It is OK to build strictly on top of Squeak and not reveal your added source code.

We don't currently have a database of bug reports, so we don't reveal this to the public.  (Working to get a Swiki for this.)

(We won't necessarily be guided by the needs of our software community.  We hope to build things they don't yet know they need ;-).


	The GPL (GNU) license seems to forbid charging more than the cost of reproduction for software.  We definately don't say that in the Squeak license.

	When in doubt, read the license.  Hope this helps.

--Ted.


Ted Kaehler,   Walt Disney Imagineering, R&D
(home) 3415 Cork Oak Way, Palo Alto, CA  94303.  voice (650) 424-1070
http://www.webPage.com/~kaehler2/
Give me your old Macintosh!   I will put it in a first grade classroom.