Squeak License OSD-compliance

Matthew C. Weigel weigel at libcom.com
Wed Feb 27 05:38:52 UTC 2002


On Tuesday, February 26, 2002, at 08:25 p, Cees de Groot wrote:

> Matthew C. Weigel <weigel at libcom.com> said:
>> Section 2: There is a thorny issue about fonts.
>
> It's not, for two reasons: the fonts are bitmap fonts, and since 
> the Squeak
> License was written they have been shown not to be protectable 
> under copyright laws in various court cases - so we could just 
> strike the whole passage. For good measure, though, we're working 
> on replacing the Apple fonts.

Striking the section is, IMO, necessary: elsewise there is a 
restriction in the license on the software that the OSD requires 
there not be.  I'm pretty sure this list's opinion on 
'unenforcable' clauses is 'then take it out!' :)

>> Section 2: it is somewhat inaccurate to say that this license is an
>> X11/MIT flavored license when it requires that modifications to
>> existing methods or the VM be released under the license of Exhibit
>> A.
>
> That's the only exception to an otherwise laissez-faire license 
> (and I think a good one, too).

I haven't got a *problem* with it, I was just clarifying what I 
thought the license's 'flavor' was.

>> Section 6: I'm pretty sure that's a no-no, at least under OSD#5.
>
> This is indeed one of the biggest questions. If it's a no-no, I 
> fear we need to go back and negotiate with Apple

IIRC, this actually came up with the APSL too (corrections, anyone? 
was it the Plan 9 license instead?). If that recollection is 
correct, then it seems that it might be 'easy' to point out that 
they have capitulated on that point previously (that's probably not 
the best wording to use around them, though :).

weigel at libcom.com

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