Squeak and LGPL

nicolas cellier ncellier at ifrance.com
Sun Feb 3 21:34:02 UTC 2008


OK, so all have been said now.

Very easy, if you want to contribute to both squeak and gnu, publish in 
squeak first (MIT for core image please), then port to gnu (relicence or 
not it does not matter).

If you want to backport a Gnu library in Squeak (not for core, just an 
add-on loadable package), then publish as LGPL explicitely and no 
problem at all.

If you want to port some core gnu method to core squeak (But this is 
highly hypothetical, and i am not aware of any such example), then take 
care. Don't over nor under estimate the problem, exercize your wisdom.

IMO squeak kernel modifications should rarely exceed a few methods, and 
most should have good roots in ST-80 easy to exhibit at lawyers face.

So now, we have wasted enough time for an hypothetical problem (never 
happened) but potential (who knows), everybody is warned, we have a 
clear policy for collaboration.

I vote for this debate to be closed.

Nicolas


Randal L. Schwartz a écrit :
>>>>>> "Paolo" == Paolo Bonzini <bonzini at gnu.org> writes:
> 
> Paolo> This is not a random person volunteering to answer licensing at gnu.org
> Paolo> e-mails.  It is the FSF "licensing clerk" that answered me.
> 
> And that's still not legally binding in a way that makes me (or apparently
> others) feel comfortable.
> 
> Here's the only two ways out of this tangle:
> 
> 1) FSF could *formally* issue a *legal* document that amends the LGPL
> specifically for GNU Smalltalk, although I'm not sure that would actually make
> any difference, or if it would even be possible for existing code.  This can't
> just be "the FSF licensing clerk".  It needs to be officially issued by the
> board.
> 
> 2) The owners of the GST code could *dual* license their source (as I
> suggested a while back) so that it would have both the LGPL and a
> Squeak-core-compatible license.
> 
> Until then, I think we've now clearly demonstrated that FSF is still
> hardlining the LPGL on this code, and LGPL would be infectious if attached to
> the Squeak core.  This is not acceptable for most Squeak developers.
> 
> I wouldn't be so adamant about this if there wasn't any interesting in GST.
> But I *can't* look at GST *and* develop for Squeak core (and I do have a goal
> of contributing to the 3.11 release somehow).  There's no legal way to do that
> right now.  *Any* derived work (arguably including looking at it, and coming
> up with something similar) could give the FSF the grounds for an ownership
> lawsuit, and that would be very bad to Squeak.  So either the FSF needs to
> explicitly waive those rights in perpetuity, or the GST distro needs to be
> relicensed.
> 




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