>Stephen Pair wrote:
><snip>
> >
> > P.S.  We'd like to give special thanks to the GA Tech Squeakers for their
> > contributions to Swiki.net and Swikis in general.
>
>It's nice to give them thanks, but it seems wise that they avoid 
>using SWIKI.NET according to the license terms, lest they be found 
>guilty of modifying, translating, reverse engineering, decompiling, 
>disassembling, or creating derivative works based on, or copying 
>SWIKI.NET. (Who's creating derivative works from whom here?). And 
>watch out for transferring any part of the SWIKI.NET software (like 
>Squeak, Comanche, Swiki, etc.). It's forbidden by the license. And 
>no one may use the name or mark SWIKI.NET or any rendition thereof? 
>Did Mark Guzdial surrender his rights to the name Swiki?

Mark S., could you please help me interpret your first sentence?  I 
lost the antecedents for "them" and "they."  Are you saying that we 
at Tech could no longer use the term "Swiki" or any Swiki software 
*IF* we use Swiki.Net because use of Swiki.Net puts us under their 
license, and their license says that we can't do anything with 
"swiki" software?  (That does seem funny, since "Powered by Comanche" 
is emblazoned on the front page :-)

The deal that I struck with Ga Tech lawyers was that GaTech retains 
ownership of PWS and Swiki and the successive versions that we 
develop (such as Comanche), but releases them for use, modification, 
and inclusion with Squeak.  My interpretation is that GaTech would 
not claim ownership of variations of PWS developed by others. We 
didn't argue about the names of anything.  I don't know what rights I 
have to the name "Swiki" since it's clearly derivative of Ward's 
"Wiki."

I'll talk to Stephen off-list about it.

I should mention, to be up-front about my role in all this, that I am 
a member of Advantive's Board of Advisors.  Even if I wasn't, I 
certainly would like to see them succeed at their efforts! I was not 
involved in setting up the company nor am I any kind of principal in 
the company -- Stephen and his colleagues decided to work at 
commercializing Squeak and Swiki technology on their own, and then 
they approached me about advising them.  None of the GaTech Squeakers 
are currently working for Advantive (though they're trying to snare 
some of our graduates :-), nor do we receive research funding from 
them. However, we are working cooperatively on our research efforts, 
e.g., finding and correcting bugs, improving the robustness and 
efficiency of Comanche and Swiki.

Mark

--------------------------
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html