Now you are closer to my sentiments ...

I do think that the concept of IP (for software at least -- any many 
other areas as well) has completely broken down. This has never 
bothered me since I've never wanted to own anything or make money by 
selling stuff I claim I own. I don't think any scientist can do their 
thing at a high level without fully participating in the complete 
sharing of ideas. For people who want to be in business and make 
money with SW, I think the best routes have to do with selling 
various kinds of services around the SW (from documentation to 
talking about it to handholding and upwards).

And, there is the little matter of making something worthwhile, free 
or not, before trying to look for marketable routes ...

Cheers,

Alan

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At 10:05 PM +0100 3/13/03, Cees de Groot wrote:
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>On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 21:37, Jarvis, Robert P. (Contingent) wrote:
>>  If the Squeak community wants a truly "free" Squeak then the Squeak
>>  community is going to have to rewrite Squeak to eliminate any and all code
>>  and objects inherited from Xerox, Apple, and Disney.
>
>Indeed. However, in practice I really don't expect either of these
>companies to be able to fully suppress Squeak. Maybe it'll become
>illegal in the US, but what's still legal over there these days anyway?
>
>Furthermore, you'd need to do the whole exercise in a documented
>white-room effort, which means that no-one of us can do it.
>
>(I've been thinking often that Cincom probably may have some legal clubs
>to swing at Squeak as well, b/c of all the VW users that have looked at
>VW source code and then modified Squeak).
>
>Which all goes to show that the whole concept of 'Intellectual Property'
>completely breaks down in circumstances like these. Maybe we should
>indeed follow Alan's advise and give up caring about it. I really
>couldn't care less whether Disney might threaten to sue me. But then, I
>live in the Netherlands...
>
>
>
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