Squeak and LGPL

Diego Fernández diegof79 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 1 03:48:08 UTC 2008


Hi, as a result of the recent discussion about the license issues of  
GNU St and Squeak, I've sent a mail to the FSF license help.
So I want to share my mail and the response... maybe is useful to  
others:

------- My mail ----------
Hi, with the recent release of GNU Smalltalk 3.0, a discussion about
LGPL and Smalltalk started in the Squeak Developer mail list. (the
most used open source Smalltalk is Squeak which is released under MIT
License).

This mail of the thread:
http://www.nabble.com/beware-GNU-Smalltalk-if-you-want-to-contribute-to-squeak-to14700716.html

Says basically that LGPL is incompatible with a language like Smalltalk.
Where I can find more information on this issue?

I'm a developer who would like to contribute to both projects, and my
concern is: if I develop a package that works in GNU Smalltalk and in
Squeak, which is the correct license to choose? (note that in Squeak
or GNU Smalltalk loading a package means loading the source code)
And if I contribute with patches to both projects, can my patches
generate legal problems in the future (in case that someone claims
that Squeak violates LGPL?

-------- The response ----------
Hello,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We
rely on volunteer effort and often have difficulties keeping up.

> Says basically that LGPL is incompatible with a language like
> Smalltalk. Where I can find more information on this issue?

As long as there is a package system and/or clear namespace separation,
it is always possible to see where a program ends and a library starts,
even if they ultimately end up in the same VM or runtime.

I'll gladly answer any specific questions you have on the subject. But I
don't think that LGPL is incompatible with any particular language.

> I'm a developer who would like to contribute to both projects, and my
> concern is: if I develop a package that works in GNU Smalltalk and in
> Squeak, which is the correct license to choose? (note that in Squeak
> or GNU Smalltalk loading a package means loading the source code) And
> if I contribute with patches to both projects, can my patches generate
> legal problems in the future (in case that someone claims that Squeak
> violates LGPL)?

If you are the copyright holder of the package, you can distribute it
under several different licenses concurrently. We call this
"dual-licensing". For instance, MySQL AB release their software under
both a free license and a proprietary license. So technically speaking,
there is nothing stopping you from contributing your package to
different projects under different licenses.

That said, every project has the right to decide their own contributor
policies and licensing schemes (the FSF certainly does!). If you tell
the Squeak project that you intend to release your code under both
licenses to both projects (each with its respective license of course)
and they decide to turn your code down, then they are well within their
rights to do so.

I see the matter boiling down to policy decisions, opinions about free
software and community goals.

I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. But feel free to ask of you have
any further questions. I'll do my best to expedite my answer.

--
I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice

   Regards, Yoni Rabkin
-----------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20080201/6ed4a2de/attachment.htm


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list