[IAEP] squeak/etoys accepted into Debian main

[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Fri, Nov 07, 2008 at 09:12:34PM -0800, Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
>At Sat, 8 Nov 2008 05:56:39 +0100,
>Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>> 
>> >  (In regards to whether it is just a philosophical checkbox, I tend 
>> >to think so.  If a company makes a product based on an open-source 
>> >project and sells it to Cuba from the US, the company may be 
>> >punished regardless what its license says.)
>> 
>> The Cuban government would not hardly buy an american commercial 
>> distillation of a FLOSS software product. Rather they would buy 
>> know-how on creating their own derivative distribution based directly 
>> on Debian, which is completely legal.
>
>  Sure.  That is (almost) my point.  So whether the license wants to 
>protect the original company like the Squeak License does, they can get 
>the know-how.

I lost you there: Do you mean to say that the intend of the Squeak 
license is to make sure a US company can earn money from selling Squeak 
to Cuba - and that the company is "punished" economically by Cubans 
instead "stealing" the free software?

Or do you mean to say that it does not matter how a US company interacts 
with Cuba, it will get punished by the US government for doing so.


My point was different: I believe that with DSFG licensed software 
Cubans do not "steal" access to it, they are legally granted acces, so 
can openly subscribe to up-to-date releases and interact with upstream 
developers for improvements.

If US companies are punished no matter the licensing, then US companies 
are irrelevant for discussing the relevancy of licensing.

A danish company is not punished for doing business with Cuba, but might 
be punished for violating a license.

I care about free flow of software. I care not for liberal abilities for 
economic profit. I care not about the money!


I do not know the Squeak license and its intend. If it intends to favor 
protection of the owner from punishment over the bloom and widespread 
use of the software itself, then most certainly I believe that adjusting 
the license to being DFSG-compliant has been a "loss".


  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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