Ironically enough "this is our way , take it or leave it" would not work for Pharo because its smalltalk and basically smalltalk by architecture allow you to deeply modify the system from the get go.

This make Pharo technically impossible to control from a dictator and committee point of view like lets say Python or Linux. CPython is a single implementation , but with pharo every pharo app is essentially a new pharo implementation.�� The moment you modify or extend the pharo image you make a new pharo implementation.

I don't like the tone Stef is expressing , he is quite rude and definitely does not represent the tone of the community which far more open to dialogue but he is correct , GPL would never have worked for Pharo. Actually I dont think I have seen a language that is fairly popular under a GPL license.

There is of course software under GPL which is sucessful commercially, Blender is an example, but GPL does not cover 3d assets, music and sound. In that case you use another kind of license like creative commons or heavily modify GPL to extend beyond code. So it was definitely not GPL that made Blender popular, actually it caused a problem with game developers because games using the BGE (Blender Game Engine) were at first considered data because the code was packaged inside the blend file which had a binary format so that meant it was not covered by GPL because it considered the whole game code just data (there is a separate executable for loading the game code)�� but then Blender decided to change this also to GPL with extending its license and that pretty much killed commercial games made with Blender.

So technically you could get away with GPLing Pharo because you could argue that Pharo image is merely data that the VM loads and not real source code, which is kinda correct but it would be messy and the legal interpretation very confusing and uncertain ( leaves a lot of room for legal interpretation ) . As a company you cannot risk this , especially while you expect to make big profit.

As stef said GPL is like a virus, it spread anywhere it touches. Even if all you do is add a tiny bit of GPL code inside the Pharo image would turn the entire Pharo implementation including the VM into GPL and because Pharo tries to approach as many companies as possible as most other languages do , because money helps improve the popularity and the quality of the code, MIT is definitely the way to do.

So its more a "have to" than a "must to".

Also double license or not its kinda pointless, the moment something becomes MIT you can be rest assured that people will pick MIT over GPL. This because you can turn MIT to GPL but you cannot turn GPL to MIT. So even if you want your project GPLed , MIT is still more than enough and of course most people will pick MIT for commercial apps so they don't need to open source their code.

So no, it does not matter that Spec is double licensed , or if it is legal that is double licensed , since its active implementation is MIT this all you need to know.

So for Pharo and pretty much almost all other programming languages out there who aspire to be used by as many people as possible and play an active role in the software market MIT like license is a mandatory choice. The irony of people not wanting to open source their code but wanting to use open source code. Its this type of thinking that justifies the existence of GPL.

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 2:59 PM Offray Vladimir Luna C��rdenas <offray.luna@mutabit.com> wrote:

Hi,

On 07/09/16 13:39, stepharo wrote:
>
>> We should not have "The Pharo Way" (TM) or "No way!"... suddenly
>> Markus talk about feedback loops comes to mind, particularly the
>> slide on page 53, regarding "An open source smalltalk ignoring all
>> community contributions"[2]. This is far for being the case in this
>> community and we can keep that scenario at safe distance, if we show
>> options. So, dual license is an option, git is an option, markdown is
>> an option. Pharo as a place with options is one where Pharo can
>> fulfill its vision for more people. Let's make these options visible
>> and figure out the way the work better for a wider community.
> It is amazing how you like talking.
>

Yes. I like. Is the way to know unwritten history. Not all the people in
the community know the details as you do, so talking is the way of going
out of misconceptions, like mine about dual license or state positions,
like why I don't use Pillar. The "it has been discussed, this is our
way, take or leave it" doesn't help in understanding way. So yes, I'm
all about encouraging dialog/talk if it helps to understand.

Bye,

Offray