On 07.09.2010 09:03, Andreas Raab wrote:
Hi -
After careful consideration I've decided to put WebClient under the MIT license, and updated the repository at http://www.squeaksource.com/WebClient.html to reflect the license change.
If you're curious why I'm making the change, the answer is really that the code isn't all that unique and even though I'm not done with it it's good enough to be released and by now I simply get more benefits from it being thoroughly tested by as many people as possible. That and the (to me surprising) amount of interest that WebClient has received in combination with the (to me disturbing) lack of due diligence that many users of WebClient apparently have. I think we can all take away a lesson from this little incident that even if you find some random code on the net it doesn't mean it's up for grabs.
Also, if I may be so bold, let me propose the "2 step process to eternal license happiness". It's really simple:
[ ] Did we check the license of the package? [ ] Did we contact the author of the package?
If you check off the above two steps whenever you're about to use some third-party code, I think you'll find that situations like the one we've encountered here are virtually impossible. Attach the steps to the bug tracker if you must, but follow them.
Since you know how to verify the license status on your own, let me add the second step of the process and once more repeat that I would rather keep WebClient an externally loadable package. If at all possible I urge you to look at what has been done with HTTPSocket in Squeak and adopt a similar approach; that is provide a minimal internal HTTP interface and allow third-party libraries (WebClient or other) to hook into this interface. There is really no need to have everything tied together at the hip; HTTPSocket is a reasonable facade for HTTP requests in the kernel.
Regarding write access to the WebClient repository, I'm not a fan of making repos world-writable (this is really a sign of abandonware) but due to the license I'm fine with granting Sven and Philippe write access if they want it (drop me a note if you do).
Did you change your position towards #squeakToUtf8 and string concatenation (I didn't follow the entire previous thread)? Otherwise it would probably make more sense if I continue sending patches. Now don't get me wrong, you're of course allowed to write code whichever way you see fit and reject anything that doesn't follow this. But the same goes for me. And for me it's important that code loads without any overrides. So I'm probably going to set up a WebClientPharo or WebClientPhilippe or something repository. Cheers Philippe