Sublicensing

Daniel Vainsencher danielv at netvision.net.il
Sat Aug 16 15:02:09 UTC 2003


You'd need a lawyer to be sure, but to be conservative about it, I think
we should assume refactorings don't solve license problems. Which
doesn't make them worthless - it will take time to accumulate everything
we need, and having a more modular and understandable system in the
meantime still makes life easier from all other points of view.

OTOH, if you write/wrote something from scratch, you should be careful 
to give it a liberal license (say MIT).

Daniel

Stephane Ducasse <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
> But daniel, when I create a new class called SpaceTally out of System 
> Dictionary this is not anymore
> the system dictionary. Any refactoring is then worthless....
> 
> Stef
> 
> 
> 
> On Saturday, August 16, 2003, at 12:02 PM, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> 
> > Unfortunately, cleanups and refactorings of existing code don't change
> > its license. So cleaning up SystemDictionary, for example, by moving 
> > out
> > functionality, doesn't help this aspect (though it sure is nice to be
> > able to browse SystemDictionary without taking a break for lunch...).
> >
> > The way to change is to start doing more stuff like the Notifications
> > work by Roel, that is completely new code. That stuff is categorized
> > Licenses/SqueakL + MIT on SM, and that's exactly what we need. The 
> > ideal
> > package is a new, from scratch implementation of existing 
> > functionality,
> > so that we can take some SqueakL licensed stuff out of the image,
> > without losing power. For example, I now notice that ClosureCompiler is
> > licensed SqueakL. If we can relicense it as dual under SqueakL+MIT, and
> > use it to replace the existing compiler, that would be significant 
> > progress.
> > Anthony?
> >
> > BTW, anything licensed MIT is compatible with any other license, if 
> > only
> > because it can be freely sublicensed, so that can be the last licensing
> > decision you're forced to make...
> >
> > Daniel
> >
> > Stephane Ducasse <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
> >> Hi daniel
> >>
> >> I would really like that all the cleaning we are doing, is done under
> >> MIT or dual licensing
> >> I'm really sad about this Squeak-L license. so how do we proceed for
> >> that. Should we include in all the changesets we produce a MIT 
> >> license?
> >>
> >> Stef
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Friday, August 15, 2003, at 10:12 PM, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> >>
> >>> I gave the VM as an example. To end up with a completely free squeak,
> >>> we'd need to eventually replace all the code we cannot get relicensed
> >>> as
> >>> free software.
> >>>
> >>> This will take a lot of time, and somewhat change how we do things, 
> >>> and
> >>> people need to decide if its what they want. One positive aspect of
> >>> having to rewrite everything is that it makes it easier to mini-"burn
> >>> the disc packs". We'd be replacing whole subsystems anyway, so 
> >>> putting
> >>> some new ideas in there would be easier.
> >>>
> >>> So if we look at it really positively, it does have an exciting 
> >>> aspect
> >>> ;-)
> >>>
> >>> Daniel
> >>>
> >>> Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus <schwa at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> >>>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 09:27:14PM +0200, Stephane Ducasse wrote:
> >>>>>>> Now, this lawyer is not a copyright/opensource expert, and it is
> >>>>>>> possible we'll find someone more confident about getting smart.
> >>>>>>> But I
> >>>>>>> think we need to start planning on solving this problem by
> >>>>>>> organizing
> >>>>>>> *and by coding*, rather than by PR, lawyers or licensing. I say
> >>>>>>> this
> >>>>>>> quite sadly, because this will not be easy to do :-( OTOH, it
> >>>>>>> could be
> >>>>>>> fun. Anyone care to design a new VM? :-)
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Just  a naive question. If we would come up with a new VM, this 
> >>>>> would
> >>>>> solve the problem?
> >>>>
> >>>> No.  We'd have to replace all the Collection classes, Magnitude
> >>>> classes, etc.  Eg: pretty much anything in Squeak up to the point
> >>>> that Squeak Central left Apple.  And maybe more.
> >>>>
> >>>>> What means a new VM exactly how different would it have to be?
> >>>>> Stef
> >>>>
> >>>> Ask a lawyer!  That's a very good question.  Probably not that
> >>>> different, since this VM is based on the blue-book spec.  Just
> >>>> as long as code is not copied directly.
> >>>>
> >>>> Joshua (IANAL)
> >>>
> >



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