Re: ITP: squeak-vm, squeak-image, squeak-sources -- A highly portable Smaltalk system
On 2 Jun 2001, John Hasler wrote:
> Wolfgang writes:
> > That "weirdness" is a right.
>
> If you think about it carefully you will see that it is exactly the
> opposite.
Certainly not.
> > So if Apple asks to give up that right to be able to use that program,
> > then it is a restriction.
>
> Apple is asking no one to give up anything. They are merely attempting to
> comply with the law.
With the letter of the law, yes. Not with the spirit of the law.
You don't understand it, do you?
There is one big problem with bilingual countries, and that is that people
tend to dislike it when they have to get into trouble for the
sake of bilinguality. Therefore, people will try whatever they can, as
long as they don't have to translate some official documents.
I don't exactly know what Canadian laws say on this matter, but it's
probably that in case of a contract, the native language of both
contractors is the language that has to be used for that contract. If
their native language differs, they have to agree on the language being
used.
This looks good in theory, but it simply doesn't work. Of course, it does
work when both contractors are equally "powerful". And probably the
government will at the very least have a French version available for
every official document available, should some "weirdo" (sic) ask for
it. In real life situations, however, both contractors almost never
are equally powerful. So instead of having a province where people can
live, study, and work talking French if they want to, Canada will have a
province where people can live and study talking French, but if they want
to sign a job contract, they'll have to know English. If they want to buy
something, they'll have to know English. If they want to use a computer
program, they'll have to know English. Because the firm that set up the
"agreement" didn't bother translating the document into French.
Worse, they explicitely said you have to agree not using French. Even if
you don't want that. I may not want to be able to read English to use a
GPL-ed program. But at least GPL does not ask me to say I want to.
In Belgium, this has been solved quite easily now: for every contract, you
have a place it applies to. If it applies to Flanders, the Dutch-speaking
part of the country, it has to be in Dutch. You can agree to give an
English or French version as an extra, but if there's no Dutch version,
it's simply not valid (In the French speaking part of the country, this
will of course be French instead of Dutch). This works quite well, but not
perfect yet.
> > And as such this license is not free.
>
> Then neither is the GPL.
- the GPL is not made by an organization that has lawyers working for them
in every country in the world. Apple can easily afford a bilingual
license.
- the GPL does not explicitly state that French is not being used as
language. It only states that English will be used. This may seem as to
be a small detail, but it's not.
> > Normally, when you travel to a country, you are supposed to learn how the
> > citizens of that country live and you have to adapt.
>
> Normally, one is not required to travel to a country at all.
You're not _required_ to travel, that's correct. But _if_ you travel,
you're supposed to live by the local rules.
It's not illegal to smoke Marihuana in Belgium (it's not really legal
either, but that's another matter). Would that mean I could go to the US
and smoke a little Marihuana in front of a police station, just because
I'm from Belgium where doing that isn't illegal? I doubt that...
Anyway; this barely belongs on -devel. This'll (probably) be my last post
to this thread.
--
wouter dot verhelst at advalvas in belgium
Try does not exist. Believe that you will do it, else you will fail.
-- Luke Skywalker,
in the trilogy "The Jedi Academy", Kevin J. Anderson
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