On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 01:23:26PM +0200, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
> 
> 
> Cees De Groot a ˆmcrit :
> > On 6/24/06, Hilaire Fernandes <hilaire at ext.cri74.org> wrote:
> > 
> >> Other people attending the meeting have shown absolutely *NO INTEREST*
> >> in the matter, it is sad :(
> > 
> > 
> > I don't know. It might also be an indicator that the licensing
> > "issues" are largely just perceived, or deemed to be PR stuff, or
> > whatever. But not a real actual stumbling block to actual Squeak
> > practicioners.
> 
> I totally agree with you. The licensing "issues" does not prevent Squeak
> to be a free software, it is just preventing Squeak to enter mainstream
> in the free software community.
> 
> Hilaire

+1

I have been pushing Dr. Geo I into junior and senior high schools
here in Taiwan. It was such a pleasure to know that Hilaire is
releasing Dr. Geo II using LGPL. But for the moment I have to hold
back the push for Dr. Geo II because it is built with Squeak,
whose license issue is just about to be resolved yet. As Hilaire
has frequently urged me to try, there must be a lot more other very
interesting and useful tools in education built with Squeak just
like Dr. Geo II.

Personally I wouldn't care the "small license bug" (as Hilaire calls
it) when I demonstrate things to my nieces and nephews. When it comes
to promoting the software publicly, it is totally different. As a
long time FS advocate who have made peripheral contributions such
as the "Software Category Drawing" on the gnu site, I would constantly
get into defensive position about the license issue if I were to
promote software with this license bug. The worst part is that the
defense would be against the FS community, the force that built my
reputation and strength. Political thinking? Yes, but practical
nontheless. You chose to pursue Squeak because of practical
considerations (in the technical sense) , and I chose not to because
of the very same reason (in the political sense).

With high respect to the squeak community I plead your attention to
the license issue. Now that the old version becomes free, I personally
believe that it is only a matter of time that the entire thing becomes
free and that major distributions start packaging this nice software
in a few years. I will be glad to help rewrite some less important
components whose authors can no longer be contacted for a change of
license, and release it as LGPL or less retrictive license as the
squeak community sees appropriate. (Good at geometry/algorithms/regexp,
OK at OOP and many languages, no smalltalk experience.) When the
license issue is comfortably resolved, I will then go back to the
political arena and start a major push here in Taiwan ;-) BTW I
believe there are many FS advocates around the world who hold more
or less similar attitude. It would be beneficial to the squeak
community and to the world at large if the squeak community announces
the decision to move towards a "bug-free" license and call for
participation to accelarate the transition.

Best Regards,

-- 
	     Bowl Makers in China Ordered to Preload Food
	     http://people.ofset.org/~ckhung/a/c062.en.php
			     Chao-Kuei Hung