Re: Netscape license

[Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>]

Scott McDermott <vaxerdec@frontiernet.net> writes:
> They did have a good point though:
> 
> "...code covered by the GPL is inherently tainting (almost all software
> that uses it must also be covered by the GPL)"  It might be said that
> the GPL is so antithetical as to be mere fanaticism.

Antithetical to what? Encouraging free software? I think not.

I doubt RMS would deny he had the GPL written to intentionally to fanatically
protect the free software from efforts to make it proprietary.

Personally I think they would have been better off using the GPL intact with
the following two statements:

1 To have code accepted into the Netscape branded source tree you have to
  either sign the rights to Netscape or give them an unrestricted license
  that allows them to release it under any license they want.

2 Non-GPL licenses of the Netscape branded source are available for a price.

>From discussion on the mozilla license newsgroup it seems they wanted to
encourage Netscape to be used in larger programs, so they basically didn't
want more protection than the BSD license. 

greg



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