On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 12:11:34AM +0200, Andreas Raab wrote:
> IANAL, but I am slightly sceptical about what it means that APSL 2.0 is now
> a "Free Software License". Given FSFs particular interpretations of "free"
> it may turn out that for quite a number of users that "free" APSL 2.0 may
> turn out to be significantly less free of restrictions than current
> Squeak-L.
> 
According to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html

 The FSF now considers the APSL to be a free software license with three
 major practical problems (...) :

    -It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with other files
     which may be entirely proprietary.

The only problem with GPL-Like licenses wrt squeak is the viral part: 
Squeak GPL ==> everything is  GPL that has been built with with Squeak. 
The SqueakL does have  some "viral" part, too. But it allows to "built 
on top" and you only need to release the code to changes to the base, 
not additions. 

The APSL seems to have a very similar concept:

It's viral:

 (c) If You Externally Deploy Your Modifications, You must make
 Source Code of all Your Externally Deployed Modifications either
 available to those to whom You have Externally Deployed Your
 Modifications, or publicly available. Source Code of Your Externally
 Deployed Modifications must be released under the terms set forth in
 this License, including the license grants set forth in Section 3
 below, for as long as you Externally Deploy the Covered Code or twelve
 (12) months from the date of initial External Deployment, whichever is
 longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your
 Externally Deployed Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a
 web site).

But only for "Modifications". Larger works are possible:

 4. Larger Works. You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered
 Code with other code not governed by the terms of this License and
 distribute the Larger Work as a single product. In each such instance,
 You must make sure the requirements of this License are fulfilled for
 the Covered Code or any portion thereof.

with:

 1.3 "Covered Code" means the Original Code, Modifications, the
 combination of Original Code and any Modifications, and/or any
 respective portions thereof.

 1.5 "Larger Work" means a work which combines Covered Code or portions
 thereof with code not governed by the terms of this License.

 1.6 "Modifications" mean any addition to, deletion from, and/or change
 to, the substance and/or structure of the Original Code, any previous
 Modifications, the combination of Original Code and any previous
 Modifications, and/or any respective portions thereof. When code is
 released as a series of files, a Modification is: (a) any addition to
 or deletion from the contents of a file containing Covered Code;
 and/or (b) any new file or other representation of computer program
 statements that contains any part of Covered Code.

For me this looks very much like the Squeak License.


  Marcus

-- 
Marcus Denker marcus at ira.uka.de  -- Squeak! http://squeak.de