Am 13.09.2005 um 00:30 schrieb Tom Hoffman:

> On 9/12/05, Giovanni Corriga <giovanni at corriga.net> wrote:
>
>
>> According to a message sent by Alan Kay to this list
>> ( http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2003- 
>> August/065270.html )
>> there is no Disney owned code in the versions distributed by
>> SqueakCentral. If this is true, things would be really simpler:  
>> Apple is
>> more open source friendly than Disney.
>>
>
> I'm sure a number of long term participants in this mailing list are
> groaning in horror at the prospect of resurrecting the thread (which I
> just read for the first time) where this comment first appeared.
>
> The above referenced post by Alan is, unfortuantely, another hazy
> chapter in this fog-enshrouded tale.  If I was to guess what Alan
> meant (admittedly, a waste of time) I'd say that he meant that Disney
> *content* (e.g., Mickey Mouse) was removed from Squeak, but not
> necessarily the code.

Actually he also meant code. There were "real" applications built on  
top of Squeak at Disney, see for example Kim's interview at http:// 
www.mime.indiana.edu/squeak/

Here's Dan's explanation of the license (from http:// 
minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/159):
"The Squeak license agreement explicitly grants the right to use  
Squeak in commercial applications royalty-free. The only requirement  
in return is that any ports of Squeak or changes to the base class  
library must be made available for free on the Internet. New  
applications and facilities built on Squeak do not need to be shared.  
We believe that this licensing agreement encourages the continued  
development and sharing of Squeak by its user community."

So what the folks did at Disney was to carefully distinguish between  
modifications and enhancements to the "base system" (which were made  
available publically) and "proprietary additions". Alan also pointed  
out that if the Squeak License had not have included this requirement  
to share, nothing done at Disney could have been made public (a  
feature we will loose when switching to something like the MIT license).

The same distinction is made nowadays at companies using Squeak - we  
can not share code made for a specific client, but when we fix bugs  
or otherwise improve the base system, we do publish those changes.

- Bert -