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Re: squeak licence



On 8/24/05, Georges Khaznadar <georges.khaznadar@free.fr> wrote:

> The idea to buy the rights may proove effective. However, how may the
> bargain begin?

I think it is quite likely that the problems with the Squeak license
simply derive from it being drafted at a point where the understanding
of open source by the industry's in general and Apple's in particular
was still fairly primitive.  As far as I can see, the only potential
cost to Apple of changing the license to something acceptable to
Debian (and to the Squeak community, which would probably prefer
something BSD or MIT-ish) is a few minutes of executive attention and
a few hours (if that) of legal attention.

Given that, we probably should make a point of a) asking them nicely
and b) mounting a petition drive to get them to fix the license. 
Apple does care about their reputation with the educational community
and to a lesser extent with the open source community, so raising a
bit of a stink might be effective, especially considering how little
effort on their part will solve the problem once and for all.

Also, I've got a friend who is an "Apple Distinguished Educator." 
Perhaps we could get many of them to sign the letter/petition which
might get someone's attention at Apple more quickly than people from
the general public.

I bring this up because I would be willing to do the legwork to start
the petition, but I'm just not sure if I'm being realistic about the
likelihood of it getting anywhere.

--Tom



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