[constraint is only fonts]
Not quite. The main constraint as far as I'm concerned, is that Squeak
will never be on Debian, with it's current license. It won't appear on
Advogato. I won't be able to sell projects using it where the client
requires either an exclusive license or a free one.

All of these may seem trivial now, but they mean we're getting farther
from a small but increasingly important part of the world of computing.
The friendly part.

Again, I do accept your assessment of the risk, and I won't do a thing
to trigger it unless Alan says so. But are you sure the status quo *is*
viable?

Daniel

"John W. Sarkela" <sarkela at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 13, 2003, at 05:56 AM, Alan Kay wrote:
> > I don't think that you have a good model here of how things work. I 
> > think Andrew would agree if I called the US a "litigous society" 
> > (people like to sue each other and do), so almost anything is 
> > actionable regardless of any logic or prior art or agreements. This is 
> > why "less is more" in general. The question is very often not who is 
> > right but who has the larger resources. Who can tie the the other 
> > party up and get injunctions, etc.?
> >
> > I'm just advising you to be very careful about all of this.
> >
> > Alan
> >
> 
> I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv.
> But Alan's point is really sound.
> 
> This is not an exercise in code refactoring. Disney's lawyers are
> among the most vicious of litigators in the multinational corporate
> world. Did I mention they have extraordinarily deep pockets?
> 
> Also note that even though Disney hosted Squeak Central for
> a period, the license constraints are with Apple and Microsoft,
> *not* Apple and Disney. Did I mention that Microsoft has deep
> pockets and a history of sequestering all competitive technologies?
> I've heard that they have pretty good lawyers too.
> 
> A sweetheart of a license was granted to Squeak at a time when
> there were few who could see commercial potential in it.
> It would be prudent to work within the framework of the
> existing license agreement. The only constraint is with
> respect to the Apple and Microsoft fonts.
> 
> This was very much at the core of the Squeak World Tour
> strategy. Keep the license unchanged, add an attachment
> that clearly indicates that the constraining IP, ie the fonts,
> had been completely eliminated from the image.
> 
> Whatever the outcome, we all share the consequences.
> 
> John Sarkela
> 
> > -----
> >
> > At 2:39 PM +0100 3/13/03, Cees de Groot wrote:
> >> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1;
> >> 	protocol="application/pgp-signature"; 
> >> boundary="=-lNaNAcmGgIvCAv7xCAiu"
> >>
> >> Hi Alan,
> >>
> >> On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 14:07, Alan Kay wrote:
> >>>  Consider the potential opening the can of worms, waking the sleeping
> >>>  dog, raising the lid of Pandora's box (or paste your favorite
> >>>  metaphor here) .....
> >>>
> >> You've made that argument before, and the refutation is always the 
> >> same
> >> - basically, there are no dogs to awake: whatever happens, we'll have
> >> the stuff at least under the Squeak-L. The worst thing that can happen
> >> is that Apple and/or Disney slam the door on re-licensing. At least we
> >> will know where we are then, can forget about getting back to these
> >> discussions for the coming fivehundred years (I'm just extrapolating 
> >> US
> >> Congress' copyright extensions here ;-)), and continue with our daily
> >> business.
> >>
> >> Unless you know something we're unaware of, so far...
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Cees
> >>
> >> Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc
> >> Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part
> >>
> >> Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:signature.asc 94 (????/----) 
> >> (00091550)
> >
> >
> > -- 
> >