[Squeakfoundation]urrrghh - ask for lawyer

[squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org]

Well, license discussions pop up from time to time and it usually ends
with Andrew Greenberg setting us straight (thanks, Andrew)! :-)

Maarten Maartensz <maartens@xs4all.nl> wrote:
[SNIP]
> What
> concerns me are the following general points:
> 
> 1. To protect Squeak from any commercial take-over if it is getting
> succesful. (E.g.: What if MS takes over Apple?)

My understanding of the current situation is that Squeak today consists
of code from a whole range of authors and Apple only has rights to the
original code developed there. Disney probably has rights to another big
chunk and finally we have the rest of us!

So there is no single entity with all the rights to Squeak. Just like
the Linux kernel btw. Linus has rights to his code but not all the
others. If I write some code and let you use it under a license doesn't
change the fact that it is still MY code.

> 2. To protect Squeak and SqueakFoundation from any legal threats (for this
> is how lawyers  appear to work: Start a court-case and break down the
> opponent simply by being forced to defend oneself: most persons have too
> much to loose not to be willing to "compromise" and "settle").

Have no idea how plausible such a scenario is. Andrew? (sorry, you don't
have to let yourself be dragged in by me! :-)

> 3. To keep Squeak definitely open source - which seems to me (but I am
> naive and ignorant here) by having all code contributors both own their
> code and giving it away as open source (as in science: your contributions,
> if any, will be part of science, but your publications are yours, and you
> get the public credit, as in "So-and-so's Theorem").

As I said - as author you still own your code. The thing we should
improve is to keep track of all the authors and to make sure that all
authors of "base Squeak modules" have agreed to license those modules
under SqueakL (at the least). I wrote a post about the minimal
requirements for these "base" modules but noone seemed to pick up the
ball... SqF? I think this is an important question. Gotta check that
interim structure and see whoever should be in charge of such a thing...

> 4. Allow commercial application of Squeak without any consequences for
> Squeak's open source status and development (as e.g. geology is applied by
> oil-businesses).
> 
> Most of this seems covered by the Squeak license, in intent at least, but
> one of my problems is that I've read diverse licenses and discussions on
> their relative merits I can't make much of, being no lawyer and no US citizen.

Well, I think Andrew has spoken earlier and I think he said "broadly"
that SqueakL is quite elegant.
Having SqueakL changed is probably quite tricky (Disney and Apple must
be contacted I guess, and why should they care to spend money on this
question?). And then all other authors must expressly agree to change
their license too (today I guess you could say that they all have
"silently" agreed to SqueakL for their code).

anyway, my 2 cents, IANAL etc. etc.

regards, Göran