Thanks Dean --

Disney did not at all "acquire" Squeak in any way. We put it on the 
Squeak.org website (not in any way owned or controlled by Disney) in 
Sept 1996 while we were still at Apple, and we started using it from 
that public website when we arrived at Disney a month later. There is 
no distinction of any kind that exists between the use we made of 
Squeak while at Disney and the use made by any of the rest of the 
participants of the Squeak list.
      Similar to Duane Maxwell et al. at exobox, we did a few things 
that we considered "Disney content" (e.g. a multiplayer game that 
Michael tells me is still going at EPCOT) and many things that we 
considered "opensource".  The latter were promptly (within a few 
days) put out into the public update stream and releases and we had a 
separate internal update stream and releases for the content side of 
things. It was all very kosher and very simple. When we left Disney 
and set up Viewpoints (our nonprofit public benefit 501(c)(3) 
research institute), we continued to use the Squeak.org stuff, as we 
indeed do today. We left the "Disney content" behind.
      I spent quite a few hours and days in the first several years 
explaining to everyone at Disney from Michael Eisner on down -- and 
especially Disney lawyers -- what the opensource agreement actually 
meant: the most important part of which was that Disney would likely 
get greater benefits in the end from allowing our stuff to go into 
the opensource code because it would likely spread faster and be seen 
as less threatening if Disney (or any other large company -- like MS 
and Sun) didn't own it and couldn't control it. After a few years of 
this, all in the company accepted this argument and were happy to go 
along with it.

In other words ...

Cheers,

Alan

At 7:52 PM -0500 3/26/03, Swan, Dean wrote:
>Hi Andreas,
>
>	Well, quite honestly, I have no issues with Squeak's
>current licensing, so I only care that nobody does anything
>to make it worse.  GPL infection would be worse, as would
>a more restrictive license, but I am perfectly satisfied
>with the existing license, so I do really just wish that
>people would take Alan Kay's advice and not worry about it.
>
>	Regarding Disney and Michael's lawyers, I agree.  He
>is a shrewd business man, not to be taken lightly, however
>the word "Disney" does not appear in the Squeak License
>anywhere.
>
>	Also, I assume that Disney acquired Squeak under the
>Squeak License?  So things done at Disney qualify as
>"Modified Software", but with respect to the "existing
>class objects or their existing relationships", or "any part
>of the virtual machine", I'm not sure that everything added
>to "official" Squeak at Disney is subject to the "must be
>made publicly available".  It seems that Disney is content
>to treat all of what is in the "official" Squeak images as
>being subject to that clause, so I think we should just count
>our blessings and move on.
>
>	IMO, Squeak is a wonderful gift to the world, and
>"looking a gift horse in the mouth" is generally to be
>considered impolite at best.
>
>					-Dean
>
>
>
>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Andreas Raab [mailto:andreas.raab at gmx.de]
>>  Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 7:13 PM
>>  To: 'The general-purpose Squeak developers list'
>>  Subject: RE: [ANN] Closure Compiler
>>
>>
>>  Hi Dean,
>>
>>  >	I am admittedly assuming a worst case scenario.  You are quite
>>  > correct: I have no knowledge of what Apple's opinion is on this
>>  > matter.  My opinion is based on the idea that Apple is content with
>>  > the current situation and may not be receptive to entertaining a
>>  > dialogue.
>>
>>  It's somewhat surprising for me to see so many of you worry
>>  about Apple. I
>>  think you should be much more worried about Disney and
>>  Michael's lawyers in
>>  this discussion (which are quite a different problem compared
>>  to Apple...)
>>  as SqC has been working for Disney for most of the time. This
>>  means that
>>  technically speaking Disney owns 80% of what's in Squeak. Not
>  > Apple. Not the
>>  people at SqC. Even if I wanted to, I simply could not change
>>  the license of
>>  (say) Balloon 2D/3D as this was paid work done for Disney and
>>  thus Disney
>>  owns it legally and is the only party who might change that
>>  license. The
>>  same for about every other aspect in Squeak (except a few
>>  bits of MVC and
>>  stuff that was clearly done outside).
>>
>>  <sarcastic> Good luck with negotiating with the Disney
>>  lawyers. Whoever gets
>>  this done should be able to get Squeak a license to use Mickey for
>>  advertisement. </sarcastic>
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>    - Andreas
>>
>>


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