Proposal for TWO official releases

goran.hultgren at bluefish.se goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
Fri Apr 19 07:58:47 UTC 2002


cg at cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot) wrote:
> Maarten Maartensz <maartens at xs4all.nl> said:
> >Third, as G=F6ran possibly rightly remarks, in specific refined senses of
> >"free software" and "open source", Squeak is or may not fully qualify - by
> >the wordings or interpretations of FSF, OSI and DFSG (which may or may not
> >be mine, and have their special reasons and ends, as Squeak's licence arose
> >for specific reasons).
> >
> These interpretations are what the majority of users seems to accept.
> Therefore, it is dangerous to deviate from these definitions if only to
> avoid the impression that you're playing fast and loose with these terms
> just in order to 'ride the wave'. Better to be conservative in your
> words here.
> 
> >My own conclusion is more simply that Squeak IS free software and IS open
> >source - AND comes currently with its own special licence, which indeed
> >does deserve explanation.=20
> >
> No, it is NOT free software. I cannot give it to my friends in Libya or
> Iraq, for example. In fact, it is the US government that decides who I
> can share it with. If there's one government in this world that I don't
> trust to make these judgements, it's the dorks occupying the District of
> Columbia (especially now they've put one of the most pathetic examples
> of their species in the driver's seat).

Hehe, Cees is warming up! :-) Even though Cees wordings might upset some
of our friends on the other side of the Atlantic I must say I agree. I
also understand your viewpoint Maarten but the Squeak community is a
member of a much larger community - the community of "free/open
software" (damn, I want a new loose term for that). And that community
has been working hard to explain and evolve the licenses and concepts we
are talking about, and they really want us all to keep these
distinctions clear. One reason is that it might actually affect outcomes
of proceedings to come ("Hey, but they say THAT stuff is open source,
and this guy over there says HIS stuff is open source - so I thought I
could do THIS.").

> >This seems a little bit too much like saying Squeak cannot be called
> >"revolutionary technology" as MS is not pleased to call it so.
> >
> The difference is that these particular terms stem largely from the hacker
> community itself, have been under scrutiny and discussion for almost two
> decades, and have wide acceptance. I'm a techie, I don't like playing
> fast and loose with well-accepted definitions - that's what they have
> invented marketing departments for and that's bad enough already.

I tend to agree. But sure - we can always tweak the language a bit. "The
license of Squeak is very free, all source is included and for most
aspects the license is similar to the BSD license." Or something like
that.

Ehrm, I still have that collection of postings about the FAQ section on
licenses to consolidate. Unfortunately Andrew Greenberg doesn't answer
my emails anymore (beats me why - but that is his decision) so I sortof
lost my momentum since I wanted some feedback from him on some wordings.

regards, Göran



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