On Thu, Nov 26, 1998 at 12:54:55AM +0000, russell.allen at firebirdmedia.com wrote:
> >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.
[cut]

> As an example, what about adding copyright information to classes?  Each class 
> could have a date, name and a licence number.  Every distribution of the Squeak 
> core classes could have a document which provides a list of licencing options, 
> from GPL to fully commercial.  Tools could be provided to browse licences etc.

This smacks of trying to solve a social problem with software.  I
think a better idea might just be to do what many of the perl folks
do--distribute their modules under the same license as perl itself.
It makes this really easy because everyone knows what the terms of the
license are.

My suggestion is that that the powers that be consider either
rewriting the squeak license to make it simpler and easier for others
to adopt or to switch to one of the better-known licenses (BSD,
Artistic, GPL with extensions[1]).  This would then be the preferred
license for addons.

All I would need to do when uploading a goodie is to add the comment,
"released under the XXX license" and everyone who uses it will know
what I mean and won't come under any additional restrictions.

> This is just an off-the-cuff suggestion which may cause technical/legal/social 
> criticisms (what fun!)...  but it's worth considering to save the Squeak 
> community a lot of problems later on.

Ditto.

> >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.

And, if the day comes that some GiantEvilCorporation [tm] sees Squeak
as a threat to its proprietary products, a flaw in the license could
prove disastrous.

> >
> >-Paul Fernhout

> Russell Allen


				--Chris


[1] The GPL as-is is a bit too restrictive for my tastes.  It doesn't
allow non-GPL'd applications to be written with a GPL'd interpreter or
library (i.e. vm and image).