Re: netscape?

[Michael G Schwern <schwern@pobox.com>]

On Sat, Aug 14, 1999 at 06:30:01AM -0500, Jeramy B Smith wrote:
> > why is that LinuxPPC has the latest netscape communicator
> > up and running but Debian does not?
> >
> >  Sergio
> 
> I thought it was because Netscape 3,4 aren't totally free. Maybe 5 will make
> the Debian requirements.

Debian has several different distributions.  main, contrib, non-free
and non-US.  The main distribution only allows Free Software as
defined by the Debian Free Software Guidelines
(http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines).  contrib and
non-free are "not part of the Debian system, although it has been
configured for use with Debian."  Seems a pretty thin distinction to
me, but at least the line is there.

Anyhow, stuff like Netscape, which is just free beer, goes into
non-free.  Mozilla's (Netscape 5) NPL license allows it to go into the
main distribution.  They're both currently in the Powerpc distribution
under non-free/web and main/web respectively.  Mozilla is at M8
(current milestone), Netscape is at 4.6 (looks like pieces of 4.61 are
there).  I don't know what the current version of Netscape is, but
something tells me it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

I wonder, does MySQL's "Its free unless you're using Windows" license
fail the "License Must Not Contaminate Other Software"?

-- 

Michael G Schwern                                           schwern@pobox.com
                    http://www.pobox.com/~schwern
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