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Mozilla To Be Dual Licensed - MPL/GPL
thegrommit writes "No doubt I'm one amongst many, but Mozilla is going to be
dual licensing their codebase" Actually, thegrommit was the first, but it's great news. Congratulations to all involved - I've been using Mozilla a huge amount over the last three months, and it's pretty amazing. You can check out the FAQ for more details.
The latest one (M17) is much faster, is much, MUCH more solid and is just about ready now. I'm not sure about the mail client but the browser bit is very nice now. It's still a little flaky in a few areas but it's definitely made a lot of progress. If they can get the backarrow in frames behavior working well, I'll swith over to it (I'm planning on moving back to pine for mail reading, so I won't need that functionality anymore anyway.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Upon completion of the relicensing, I'll award the Mozilla folk an official Atta Boy. More await the release of a version usable by my father.
It's easy to envision there will be some individuals who are philosophically opposed to the GPL, and will refuse consent on that basis.
It's harder for me to imagine having a philosophical problem with the GPL, but thinking the MPL was fine (unless you are Netscape/AOL, but even they seem to have come around, so why worry?)
Was it necessarily a good idea to make this move now?
Sun wanted Star Office integrated into GNOME, so they are GPL'ing it. Netscape wants to encourage reuse of Mozilla (such as integration into GNOME), so they are GPL'ing it. (Maybe the GPL is "viral" after all. Yesss!!)
Sorry, I made the assumption that beta products didn't count because if they did then there might be even better web browsers that we don't know about because they're in the early stages. If Mozilla is as fast as IE, as stable as IE, and more standards compliant than IE, then the only thing that will keep people from switching is laziness.
Hear me now, believe me later, Mozilla is a failed project. It's not a useful browser, that is if you do more then read slashdot. Yow want to click on a link on shoutcast and have xmms load? You want Java? You want a browser that doesn't take up more memory then Homer does food at the all you can eat buffet? Then don't use Mozilla. Not now, not ever.
Rather strong claims. I wonder how you are going to know how the Mozilla will develop (or not to develop) in the future. (Aren't the helper applications already working?) As far as Java support goes, please find the relevant entry in Bugzilla for the current situation.
This isn't flamebait. It really isn't. But to say that Mozilla is useful for anything besides light browsing for more then 15 minutes at a time(before it segfaults) is just wishful thinking and sour grapes at IE5.
This is rather strong claim too. Lately I've used mozilla almost exclusively in the work. It crashes about two or three times during the day. If you think that I'm just a rambling Mozilla advocate, please search for the older Mozilla-related articles; I complained myself about the poor stability. However, this area has improved very nicely in the last few months.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Sorry, laddie; I understand your rant, but you're out of date. Mozilla may have fragile, slow, greedy; it isn't greatly so any more (yes, it's still greedier than I like). M16 was about as stable as (but much more standards-compliant than) Netscape 4.6. M17 is the best browser I've used on a UN*X platform bar none. In a week's hard use it has crashed once, so it isn't perfect. On the standards side it's up there with IE5; the stability still needs a little bit of work, but not very much.
Mozilla may have been a 'failed project'; it isn't any more.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
From AOL's page (http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/FAQ.html):
"There are a number of reasons for this. The first three points speak to the necessity for the NPL, and the fourth addresses the question of why we didn't just release the code under the NPL and the GPL.
4. Netscape is interested in encouraging the use and development of the Communicator source code by other commercial developers. Netscape was concerned that these other companies would hesitate to engage in this development if the code were regulated by a license as strict as the GPL, requiring that all related software also be released as free source. At the very least, every other commercial developer would have to look very closely at the legal ramifications of embarking on free source development. This initial hurdle alone might be enough to keep them from starting at all, so it was decided to remove the hurdle by using a somewhat less restrictive license."
I've always thought that was a bullshit response, and now we see that they could have done it all along, and just chose not to.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
From AOL's page (http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/FAQ.html):
"16. Why don't you just release the source under both the NPL and the GPL right from the start?
The NPL and GPL are incompatible, as we explain in the question about using code covered by the GPL with code covered by the NPL. If we were to take this tack, we would cause an immediate and irreparable split in development on the Mozilla code base. This split would greatly minimize the benefit that Netscape would see from free source development, and because of this, the company is not able to consider releasing its code under the GPL."
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
this assumes that you are a third party. the original author(s) of the code can change the license for new releases. since aol owns netscape, they just get netscape to make a version specially licensed for aol's use.
--
Actually, they wont display them fine-- at least Netscape wont.
If you have a CSS element defined for elements, and you don't close them- Netscape wont render it with the proper CSS element
If AOL is going to want to build into Mozilla these proprietary components, aren't we looking at GPL conflicts all over the place
NO
Aol still owns the codebase. By releasing a copy of the source under GPL, they are letting others play with it. But all of the stuff AOL generated, and perhaps all the stuff submitted under MPL, are owned by AOL and they can do anything they want. The GPL just says we can't close the stuff we play with --- the original author is not so bound.
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
About how windoze sucks... last night I installed a removable drive bay, and put the IDE drive into my machine. My computer has no other IDE devices, the disk and cdrom are both SCSI. Windows pops up a blue screen saying that it's going to have to switch to "compatibility mode", only because I just installed an IDE disk drive! Compatibility mode means everything is running 16 bit drivers, as I understand it. Well, the next couple boots both crashed, for no apparant reason. I finally did get it to boot, opened a DOS window and ran FDISK and FORMAT on the new drive. Somewhere near the end of FORMAT, the machine completely crashed, with some sort of message about the system being "halted" for some reason. I did finally get the drive formated by creating a "startup disk", booting the computer with that. Under this config, the drive letters were reversed from their appearance in windows... another thing that isn't a problem in linux. Fortunately I noticed the drive sizes before formatting "D:" and losing my existing windows installation.
Even after I removed the IDE drive and attached it to my hardware, Windows is really messed up. It's still in compability mode, and how to fix that is a good questions.... at least not without using linux.
In the last year or so, I've been using Linux to make backups of my windows partition. I have another machine that runs linux 24/7 and exports some shares with samba. I always save my work to "F:", so "C:" only has the system, software, and other non-data files. Many windows programs always default to saving stuff on "C:", often in their own installation directories, which seems like a bad idea to me, but it's only a minor annoyance compared to windows crashing.
Anyways, to back up my windows partition, I type something along the lines of:
cat /dev/sda3 | bzip2 -9 - > /tmp/sda3_windoze_backup.bz2
and then later on, when windows gets itself all messed up in a state which is more or less not recoverable, I just "cat" that image file back onto the /dev/sda3, and just like magic windows is back in a previously working state, completely reinstalled, and with only one reboot.
Actually, before I do the backup, I type "cat /dev/zero > /dos/dummy.bin" to fill the unused space with zeros, and then delete the file, so that the backup image will compress well.
I'm glad that you don't have any problems with Windows, and I wish my experience was the same. Right now, my windows partition is really messed up, and I need to find the CDR that I burned that big .bz2 backup file onto.
At the risk of getting moderated down for blantent self promotion, here's a link to my little MP3 player project, which is the reason I needed to temporarily add an IDE drive to my machine, and why Windows went south.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Assuming you were serious (as opposed to Sport-Thwacking :-) )...
The most casual observer of the Open Source community will note the philosphical split between the GPL and BSD camps. There are many people who contribute Open Source work under the BSD license because they disagree with the GPL's compulsory source redistribution requirements. GPL-ers likewise have issues with BSD's terms.
Mozilla is a sufficiently large project that it's easy to envision project members having diverging points of view on this issue. My hope is that, to the extent such disagreements exist, this change in licensing won't adversely impact the development of Mozilla.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
As SamBeckett said, you're wrong. The following code will render fine in IE, but not in Netscape:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>
Netscape won't display this.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Try opening a bunch of new windows. I can get to about 4 or 5, then it crashes. I have tried this on Windows and Linux, but I have not tried M17...
Because they want the rights back for any changes to the codebase. With copyleft licenses such as MPL and GPL, mozilla.org gets rights to use the changes, which could remain a company's "precious trade secret" under non-copyleft licensing.
IOW, they want to keep some sort of proprietary control over the code?
Please, Microsoft, license some parts of IE in GPl so that I can hack a decent, non-crashing browser!
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
You are right, although it wasn't just the gtkmozembed header files either, it was much more complicated than that.
As it turns out, RMS himself helped us out and determined that we indeed would need to add a clause to the Galeon license for allowing us to link to the MPLed code. Without it, Helix Code and Debian probably wouldn't be able to distribute Galeon (for similar reasons why Debian doesn't include KDE). This kinda sucked, so we do plan to add the clause which will fix everything.
However, once this change occurs, we will no longer need it -- it will definitely make things more simple, though. We probably have Chris Blizzard to thank for this (in part).
I must admit that I find myself browsing with Galeon more than I do with Mozilla these days. The simple and clean interface design out-weigh the 'Heavy' and feature full interface of Moz.
The biggest problem with Galeon is the steps involved in getting it to work. (They couldn't distribute the Mozilla compontents).
Using Galeon I get far fewer crashes (and Galeon is still in Alpha) than w/Mozilla or Netscape. It is MUCH faster than Mozilla and is close to being up to speed with Netscape with application zippiness. (GTK is fast!)
Give it a look, I believe that they are moving quicker than the Konquerer group because they are leveraging a rendering engine that WORKS.
Too bad that Opera never really happened. What a great little browser. Hehehee... long live open source.
--------------------
Technically, an XML parser shouldn't parse anything until the entire document has been read. This may be infeasable for web browsers.
Mabie the browsers should pop up a dialog like the following when they encounter non-conformant HTML:
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
anyway, in case anyone wants a more authoritative source for "Mozilla is the best at standards compliance", http://www.richinstyle.com/bugs/table.ht ml is the place to go.
At least that's the way I understand it.
If someone knows anything about Mozilla, they must know about Gecko, so I can agree that my statement there was a little unnecessary.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Maybe when they fix the bugs and memory problems?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
================
================
Microsoft is not the answer, Microsoft is the question. The answer is "no".
Ignoring the prevention of proprietary use of code (I am not trying to bring flames down on me), the two-clause BSD license would not have had these problems.
Which CD? If it has an autorun.inf which leads to something pretty smarmy (like a Java interface, a DemoShield which uses MMSYSTEM to play sounds, etc), then I wouldn't be surprised. I find that Win2000 loves all games based on Id Software engines.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Yes, especially if you confuse the subset/superset thing with additions/substractions... :-)
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
This is great news for the GPL. Now you have one of the biggest corporations in the US defending the legality of the GPL. Isn't it great to have AOL lobbyists on your side?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
1. It's late
2. It's becoming more irrelevent due to IE's desktop monolopy on Win desktops.
3. It takes 5 years to launch it (altough I suspect that is a result of being debug compiled)
It may initiate others (read GPL purists) to take gecko and build other browsers, but even then I'm not sure if its that big of deal. Don't both Gnome and KDE ship with their own browsers? In a desktop situation, a tech support person doesn't want to install or configure any app that can't be easily restored and will usually go with what app is the most prominent one, which may or may not be Mozilla or Gecko. Technological improvement takes second to ease of restoring. This is why IE is used by default. It's easier to restored, it's part of the OS/GUI enviroment.
Burn Hollywood Burn
The answer to both questions is, as usual, the GPL.
A week or so ago netscape preview release two came out. What is the difference between Mozilla and the Netscape preview releases? I got all confused. While I am asking questions....What the hell does FUD mean? MecchaLecchaHi Jombi
now gpl coders can start hacking on the best browser :)
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Yes, you're right; thanks for pointing that out.
IMHO, triple licensing is needlessly complex, and renders all 3 licenses essentially meaningless.
However, it certainly doesn't render them meaningless. I still can't take the Mozilla source code, make my own modifications, and distribute a compiled binary without providing the source. AOL can (and will), but nobody else.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This is good news, though. I think.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
If Mozilla people didn't want forks/spreading of coding efforts among different projects of same kind, then why didn't you guys dual license it from start. I suspect, Konqueror would evolve differently, to mention the most obvious case. Dual licensing in the past would also have attracted (more) developers in the beginning, instead of creating an aura of suspicion that Netscape was creating yet another license possibly to use community work for its own corporate goals at the expense of contributor interests. You have now proven the latter point moot, so if corporate greed wasn't in the equation then why didn't you dual license it before?
$ make xmozconfig
or just edit the config.h
you could use the big unwieldy mozilla that comes with your distro -- you know the one with eveything compiled in or recompile with just the parts you want
CONFIG_MAILER=N
CONFIG_NEWSREADER=N
CONFIG_ASTEROIDS=N
CONFIG_USER_TYPE=hacker
can you do that yet??
one day RSN, I guess...
Lach
/* NO COMMENT */
This is going to make distribution of galeon and other bits of software so much more simple. Thank you mozilla! :)
So far, I feel that I'm going to get the most value out of mozilla's parts, rather than the mozilla browser/communicator type thing that they're making.
This is absolutely fabulous.
Now with GNOME/Nautilus/Star Office/Mozilla all rolled into the GNOME foundation Linux is going to start making some desktop headlines. Not to mention what Star Office/Mozilla could do for Windows.
Joseph Elwell.
So how would that work, exactly? You abide by the terms of the liscense chosen when you get it, or are they somehow going to try and abide by both simultaneously?
-TBHiX-
Some people think I'm crazy, but the voices tell me not to pay attention to them.
Pardon my ignorance but what is the MPL?
First, you can imagine that a dually-licensed source file is really two files: one that has the GPL at the top, and the other than has the MPL at the top. When you use the file -- distribute it, compile it into a binary and distribute that, combine it with other code -- you can choose which of those ``virtual files'' you're dealing with. So if you want to use nsMozFile.cpp with your GNOME app, you might choose to use it under the GPL. But when Netscape builds Netscape 6 from nsMozFile.cpp, they'll probably choose to mean the requirements of the MPL instead of the GPL.
I'll restate that, because it's traditionally the sticking point: a dually-licensed file lets you choose which license you will honour. You have to meet the requirements of one of the licenses, at least, so mixing and matching requirements is obviously out. (Obviously. I'm embarrassed to even mention it.) You do not have to meet all the requirements of both licenses, and in fact it's impossible to do that, because the GPL forbids additional restrictions, and the MPL has several requirements that would fall under that category.
So what about changes? Well, now you've got three choices: you can create a derivative that is GPL-only, or a derivative that is MPL-only, or -- perhaps better still -- a derivative that is also dually-licensed. mozilla.org would certainly prefer that people keep things dually-licensed, for the same reasons that we want to dually-license it in the first place: it serves a larger community of contributors and consumers. Now, we can't require that your derivative be dually-licensed; that would violate the terms of both licenses, I suspect, but certainly the GPL. So all mozilla.org can do is exert control over its infrastructure, and insist that contributions which go into the cvs.mozilla.org tree be dually-licensed. It's still well within anyone's legal rights to create a GPL-only derivative of Mozilla, and fork the world. I think that would suck, a lot, and even RMS has in the past discouraged people from doing that. If nothing else, it would discourage other organizations from going the dual licensing route.
I hope that helps some. I'm really psyched about this; it's been a dream of mine (and others') since before Mozilla was even released, and the success of dually-licensing the JavaScript, NSPR and NSS/PSM code whet my appetite for more. Please join us in the mozilla-license forum for more discussion.
At this hour. Slashdot is being read :-)
I know this may be a confusing concept for you to cope with, but you see, as the Earth rotates around its axis, the part of it which is illuminated by the Sun changes constantly. So when it's the middle of the night where you are, in many other places it's the middle of the day, and a lot of people there are reading Slashdot. By the time those people are sound asleep in the middle of the night, you'll be studying or at lunch or posting to Slashdot or something; when you're doing this, remember: the time of day varies depending on where you are.
I know that understanding it fully is too much to ask from you, but please give it a try so that, even if you do remain stupid, at least you won't sound like you are anymore.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
That's fine, I agree IE is a good product. (Although, allowing sloppy html is not a good thing) Hell, until Mozilla and Konqueror clue in on what DHTML is, IE and Netscape 4 are your only options for using sites that involve DHTML and extensive JavaScript.
:) Life goes on, without MS, and that's all that I need to know. :)
IE may have a majority in browsers, but that's irrelevant. Windows has a majority in desktop installations, and the two are directly related So?
This is incorrect. The MPL allows code to be combined with code under other licenses, including proprietary licenses. Netscape is using this provision to create a Mozilla-based product (Netscape 6) that includes proprietary functionality; however any other company could do the same thing if they wished. There are no "special privileges" for Netscape in the Mozilla Public License (as there were in the original Netscape Public License, from which the MPL was derived).
No, no, no. The Mozilla Public License provides no special privileges to Netscape. You are thinking of the Netscape Public License (NPL), which does contain such provisions. The MPL was created specifically to have a Mozilla license that was generic and did not give Netscape special treatment.
Also note that as part of the effort to do dual licensing, the intent is to eliminate use of the NPL with Mozilla code; any code currently licensed under the NPL should end up dual licensed under the _MPL_ and GPL.
Both these applications produce diabolical HTML, and I'm beginning to think it's to make the pages gag browsers that stick to the standard, while ie happily chugs 'em down. Lets face it, we got into this mess by avoiding adherence to the standards. Don't think it will get any better by continuing down that path. The solution is cold turkey - real html (which leads to real XML) only, let M$ and their bullshit sloppiness come back and bite them!
haha, i must admit - the trolls on this article are much more clever than the usuals.
You know it's interesting: 20 crashes in 2 years. That's a bit high, don't you think. You computer crashing is not Mozilla's fault its the OS/Particular install you are running. Personally, the last Mozilla I installed was M15. It crashed on my EVERY DAY I used it. Decided it wasn't worth the trouble to beta test it and moved on.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Having seperate MPL and GPL forks is one option. It is what I initially proposed to Netscape more than two years ago. It has all of the problems that you describe (divergent feature sets, lag, etc.).
A better approach is for mozilla.org to maintain a dual-licensed tree. This, I believe, is what is now proposed, much in the same model as has been used for JavaScript, etc.
Speaking for myself, I'm ecstatic. After arguing for dual-licensing until I was blue in the face two years ago, and failing to convince the relevant people, I'd given up on Mozilla. Suddenly, there is new hope. I really hope that they pull it off, without too much code loss.
- Raz
Actually RMS' outlook on libraries is a bit more complicated than your statement implies. RMS does *not* advocate GPLing libraries that offer essentially the same capabilities as already existing unfree libraries do. Doing that is shooting yourself in the foot, as it will not affect unfree developers, since they don't really need the libraries in question, having non-GPLd libraries available for the same function. So libraries that do not provide unique functions should use the Lesser GPL.
Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library is a little out of date, but it covers this issue and makes the distinction between libraries that offer unique functionality (which should ideally be under the standard GPL) and those which do not (which should be under the Lesser GPL.)
The only case where RMS encourages using the GPL for a library is where the library offers unique functionality. In this case, it may be arguable that Gecko technically does, but as a practical consideration I don't think it should be looked at that way - unfree developers on the windows platforms at least (which are of course the vast majority) have the option to simply use Explorer components, so releasing Gecko under the GPL only would simply discourage it's use.
Dual-licensing is a decent compromise, achieving essentially the same affect as if they had simply licensed it under the LGPL all along...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Or, depending on your perspective, the MPL.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
IOW, they want to keep some sort of proprietary control over the code?
Close, but not quite: They want to keep some sort of non-proprietary control over the code. IOW, they want everyone to have equal control over the code.
The BSDL is optimized for code-reuse, regardless of how the code is reused. The GPL is optimized for making sure the code is always available to anyone who wants it, regardless of what has been done to it. A subtle but important difference that many people miss.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
This is nonsense from beginning to end!
Umm no. This won't do anything about the bloat, the fact that Netscape is owned by AOL, or the feature creep... just the license incompatibility.
So who's forking it Einstein? Where do you get this assumption of a fork? It's not a fork, it's a dual-license.
Oh, you want a fork, eh? Fine, you write it. Somehow I suspect your boss wouldn't appreciate you taking time off from your real job, of posting incredibly bad ideas on slashdot, to write a competitor to his browser, whatever the license.
Go away, troll.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Really, now; license advocacy works better when you don't twist peoples' words to mean other things.
Look in the mirror first.
Instead, they want the code and any improvements open to anyone who wants them, instead of possibly having some great improvements locked up in a binary one entity has control over.
License advocacy through FUD. Only the improvements by said entity would not be found in source. The original is just fine.
To get back on topic: Why did they not just place it under the GPL if both licenses serve the same purpose? Redundant licenses?
http://browser.gnomefoundation.org, a site dedicated to the best GPL'ed browser around, hosts development news and how the browser will be integrated into the desktop environment/file manager.
Also, http://office.gnomefoundation.org details news on the great open-source and maturing office suite. This is without a doubt the maturest currently open office suite.
And you might want to see http://apps.gnomefoundation.org for news about the hundreds of applications available, and http://developer.gnomefoundation.org to help improve the best, fastest, most feature rich, and most mature desktop environment available.
Linux is the future. The software at http://www.gnomefoundation.org will, and already is, putting Linux onto the desktop, and is easily the best desktop environment available.
[There are no lies in this post. Just don't make assumptions from a URL ;) ]
That is quite sensible given that the code has been changing quite rapidly, and forking it at this stage would be a bit of a nightmare. Once the codebase stabilizes a bit, changing to the GPL is probably a wise thing to do; it will allow more customization of the app, without bothering the developers with every little change that is made.
I wonder when people will check facts before replying. M17 is the current milestone. If you don't know - check or don't post. By the way, M17 crashes less but it's still very slow on P133 with 64M RAM - much slower than Netscape 4.74. This is the result of their Talkback - hangs and slowliness are not reported back to developers, as opposed to crashes. Sigh.
I've tried Opera for Linux, and despite it's alpha stage, it runs faster and better than Netscape ever has. When it catches up to the windows version, it will most certainly be worth the price.
Check it out at: Opera for Linux
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the link in the article wasn't very descriptive, neither was the FAQ. It is instructive to compare the MPL with the GPL directly.
A very useful link is the Annotated MPL which explains some of the jargon in IANAL terms, though Mozilla says that this document is "now somewhat dated, but are still here for historical purposes".
An important thing to keep in mind is that the MPL is explicitly NOT the same thing as truly open-source. As Mozilla explains in detail :(emphasis added)
since IANAL and very few of us are, maybe an actual lawyer here can comment on these documents more thoroughly? Especially the parts about intellectual property in the MPL.
JOIN !LINK CLUB!
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
If this would include neat tools like Bonzai and Bugzilla - already heavily in use with GPL projects such as GNOME, but always having been a little bit of "outsiders" to me because of the licensing - well, that'd be NICE too!
P.S.: Are there /.tters that SUCCEED in posting with the "Extrans" option? (Works fine with e.g. Gnotices, but here I only get plain text. Why? - this comment was submitted HTML formatted)
It's... It's...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
1.5) Why are you doing this?
The staff at mozilla.org is chartered with stewardship of the mozilla codebase. To that end, mozilla source must be brought to as large an audience of developers as possible; mozilla.org seeks to eliminate as many obstacles for contribution and reuse of the code as possible.
If they want everyone to be able to reuse the code, why don't they just BSD the whole thing? This would allow "as large an audience of developers as possible" to contribute to the code.
The licensing was only one major issues. The biggest one was the fact the Mozilla source is 21MB compressed.
As for whether or not this will make Mozilla development go significantly faster/better, I don't think it will. It's going fast and well right now, despite what Suck might say. Netscape has made a lot of bad choices, but Mozilla itself is doing very well.
I don't think it'll be an egg in the face of anyone.
Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet. The Internet: Designed for UNIX.
This is flamebait. Move along, children, nothing to see here.
I love seeing stuff like Galeon and MozGlade using the Gecko renderer, and apparently Nautalis will be using it too (Whatever happened to GtkHTML, then?) but my concern is that embedding Gecko in an app incurs a massive memory hit. Have you folks actually looked at your memory allocation when galeon is running?
There's this one and this one.
IE may well be good at getting dodgy html to render but it seems they aren't too good at getting what are (presumably, I've never had need to look at them) well defined standards/protocols to work properly. From a server admin point of view the fact that IE chokes on such things is a bit of a pain in the arse. Of course, the end result isn't Microsoft looking bad as the general public will just assume that the server is borked......
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Let's take sweep this crap into one big pile, and try to make sense of it:
- You encourage a fork of the Mozilla codebase.
- You think a fork is bad.
- You want to take Netscape 6, and take all the crap out, to end up with Mozilla (Mozilla != Netscape 6, Mozilla is dual-licensed, not Netscape 6)
I'll tell you this, if you take all the crap out of your posting, nothing will be left of it.
Johan V.
To me it sounds as if the codebase is branched and will go on as 2 different codebases with 2 different licenses. Not that practical if you ask me, especially when the product derived from the codebase desperately needs to be released to gain back marketshare.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
http://www.arcsite.de/hp/flibble/news/sidebar.html
if anyone at slashdot wnat to make an offical one, I'd be happy to give out the code.
I personally think this dual licensing is unfortunate. Every piece of code in Mozilla is under a free-software license. I do not not think it should be necessary for Mozilla to be dual-licensed for it to be legally combined with GPLed software. The GPL exists to promote free software. Free software does not exist to promote the GPL. For GPLed code to not cooperate with proprietary code is expected, for GPLed code to not cooperate with other free software is sad. When the GPL makes it harder for free-software projects to cooperate (like Mozilla and Kaffe), the GPL hurts the cause of free software and so it should be changed to solve the problem.
That the GPL made this mistake is understandable. It was created at a time when free software was being invented, and it was unclear whether there would be reasons for important non-GPL free-software projects. Now we know that many free-software projects, corporations and other organizations prefer to release code under free-software licenses tailored to their needs. I think the GPL needs to be changed to permit linking with software under any free-software license as long as the entire derived work is under free software licenses (no using other licenses as "shields" to get GPLed code into a proprietary application). Expressing this requirement is a license is difficult, and that is why I didn't want to see this dual-licensing. Mozilla is one of the most prominent non-GPL codebases and provided an important incentive to solve the problem: getting GPLed software to "play with" other free software without letting it "play with" proprietary software. "Keeping free software free" is an important goal of the GPL, but it is not the only goal of the GPL, and the GPL should be changed to acknowledge that.
I think that the free software community is weakened because the GPL is actively hostile to non-GPL approaches to free software. I think this discourages experimentation with free-software development and business models and therefore makes it harder for free software to compete with proprietary software. While some of this cost is visible (licensing flamewars, for example) I think the vast majority of it is invisible. How do you count projects not started, and experiments that were never made? Many people here think Galeon is a great project. Would it have been created sooner if the GPL didn't discourage working with non-GPL free software? I think one of the strengths of the free-software community is how easy it is for developers across the world to cooperate with each other. We should be working on enhancing this strength, not standing by and letting the GPL dilute it.
What's to stop people slurping it all up as GPL and dumping the MPL entirely?
KDE is getting what it deserves for disrespecting the Free Software community.
MPL makes Netscape the privileged first-developer of all MPLed code, giving a right other developers don't have: the right to fold all MPLed code back into closed-source programs. This is in stark contrast to the GPL, which makes no developer a privileged developer.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
The GPL forbids the licensee changing its terms. The licence holder (i.e. Netscape) can do whatever the hell it wants, no matter what the GPL says.
Perhaps how Perl is licensed?
You can use either Artistic or GPL, whichever one fits your project better.
Then Mac OS X users would have what they ask, i.e. a native interface.
People please think of using the LGPL whenever you can. It enforces openness but does not restrict the freedom of others.
Your comment about stability is puzzling.
I'm used every milestone release since M10 or so, and I have found them to be mostly stable. I suspect that I have experienced something like 20 crashes with Mozilla since M10 - that's a tiny number for pre-release software. What's more, the number of crashes I have experienced since M14 or so is a tiny fraction of that - perhaps 3 or 4?
Obviously, YMMV, but for me, Mozilla is already more stable that NN4, and really really close to IE stability - all this in pre-release software!
The latest news (from the KDE mailing lists) is that the Trolls are creating a new license (with help of RMS) that is GPL-compatible.
And KDE is only 'illegal' to DISTRIBUTE BINARIES OF.
You can use source builds just fine.
I need a slashdot sidebar, M18 rocks!
But in all seriousness a slashdot sidebar
would be realy cool slashdot does wep why not
a "my sidebar" ?
"think of it as evolution in action"
All the complaints about Mozilla - Netscape/AOL tie-ins, bloat, feature creep, unnecessary duplication of extant functionality, license incompatibility (galleon) - are about to be cured.
It'll be Free. It'll be linkable and reusable. All the extra crap can be stripped out. It'll be a wonderful day.
But the next day might be bleak indeed, and this is where your acid test might fail.
The MPL fork will remain the most cohesive, especially if the GPL releases lag behind the MPL. No one will maintain it as a full fledged project on its own (like the Linux Kernel is). It'll be more like GhostScript - the latest and greatest will cost you (cash), the next best is free (beer) - only in Mozilla's case it's costing freedom.
In order to make it a true acid test (and really, in order to save Mozilla from complete crapitude, my opinion), it has to completely break away from Netscape and then pick up a new, powerful maintainer (a Benevolent Dictator).
In any case, when it comes time to submit a patch, submit it under the GPL, even if that means it won't make it into the Netscape-maintained codebase.
In other words... We oughta take the crown jewels and run like hell. Maybe leave behind a thank you card.
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
For those of use not closely following Galeon development, what was the licensing problem? What license is Galeon under?
sigh
Okay, so even though the focus of my concern was that the relicensing might delay Mozilla, people decided instead to focus on my comment concerning M14's stability. The consensus in this thread is that I should Get With The Program, download the latest Mozilla, and give it a spin before criticizing.
Okay, fair enough. I make no excuses. However, if the gallery will admit an explanation: I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my desktop system from Slackware 3.4 to something using libc6. I wasn't looking forward to it, as it meant a full wipe and re-install. Fortunately, I have an ORB drive, so I was able to snapshot the entire system before wiping it. In the process, I've decided to become a lazy schnook and, rather than upgrade to Slackware 7.0, chose to go with Debian 2.2 (potato).
So there I am, confronted with dselect's list of a bazillion packages, and on a whim decide to install Mozilla. I search, find an entry, and the description says it's version M14. "Hrm, that sounds a bit old," I think to myself, "but it should be good enough to play with..."
After a quick peek, I see that M17 is in Debian's 'unstable' tree. Since y'all have recommended it so highly, I'll snarf it tonight and give it a try.
Schwab
P.S: Wish me luck; I get to repeat this entire upgrade process for my Slackware-based laptop.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
... there is such a thing, but it's an elusive beast. Would someone post a link to a download site if I promise only to use it for good, and never for evil? (namely, checking that pages display well in it before I unleash them on the web at large)
Sure, I take on a troll/flame, and get moderated down as flamebait. Moderation is a bit off today I guess.
Before modding: read the message, then understand what the writer is saying, then think about moderating.
Johan V.
That's what Netscape wanted after all - stop Microsoft making HTML (and HTTP!?) proprietary.
I agree entirely.
The whole KDE/Qt thing just made me think that the GPL really needs changing.
One suggestion that came to mind, although I'm not really sure how feasible it would be:
Have a clause in the GPL which permits linking and binary distribution with any code which is licensed under any other license which the FSF deems to be "Free". They already keep a list of such licenses, and if the license isn't on the list, then ask them to take a look at it.
You mean minor parts like Qt?
You're right. But on the other hand most Mozilla project members would not want a GPL-only fork of the tree. And GPL-only patches will never be accepted because they violate the spirit of the dual licensed product. If you want to make your own GPL-only fork, fine, but you won't get much respect from any Mozilla community members. The point of this is to allow the free use of Mozilla and it's components in GPLed projects. Patches against the Mozilla codebase should still be contributed back under both licenses so they can reach the broadest audience and keep in the spirit of the original. The nice thing is you're not coerced here, so if you want to be a prick you can. The shame and dishonor brought upon you will be coercive enough.
I like Galeon for the simple fact the it's only a browser but it definitely needs cookie support and an option to not underline links before it can replace NS4.
you really should work on your apostrophes...
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I've used Mozilla now and again (M14 I think is the last one I touched), and it's stability leaves a great deal to be desired.
Yeah, I was trying out Windows 2.0 a little while back. Boy did it ever suck. Nobody would ever use that. Ack, and did you see that Linux 0.8 kernel? That'll never get anywhere either.
It's easy to envision there will be some individuals who are philosophically opposed to the GPL, and will refuse consent on that basis.
A bunch of volunteers working on an open source project with deep philosophical problems with GPL. Are you from Redmond?
This could potentially lead to a very messy code split
Kids, don't try taking logical leaps like this at home. Obviously this person is a professional and has taken the proper safety precautions to avoid falling into a mental abyss.
Other than that, good post.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Stability, performance, hell, everything in Mozilla improves daily. If you're basing your opinion of it on M14, you're doing yourself and the project a disservice.
I'm left wondering how this is going to play with the plans that AOL has for Mozilla. From the rumour mill, AOL 6.0 client is going to be made up using Mozilla as it's rendering engine. This is supposed to be true whether or not they drop IE as their browser of choice. Couple this with some of the proprietary work being done, such as integrating AIM, and there certainly appears to be a conflict brewing.
Mind you, I have zero concern for the well being of AOL or their software. Thing is, if AOL is going to want to build into Mozilla these proprietary components, aren't we looking at GPL conflicts all over the place? How far can they take this and still please both the company funding them and the community keeping them going? As earlier posts have suggested already, there's a LOT of details that need explained before this has any real weight.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Yeah, that was a pretty good troll, wasn't it? Sounded like it might be serious, controversial and insulting enough to get a response, and just ridiculous enough to hint at its true nature. An honest-to-goodness troll. Not like those morons running around here spewing garbage, calling themselves "trolls" and acting like they are resistence fighters or something. Bull! They are spammers, nothing more. Penis Birds? Hot Grits? Criminals love open source? All of it -- spam.
It's been so long that the spammers have been calling themselves trolls that what a real troll is has been forgotten. So good job recognizing a real troll, but you forgot one thing: What to do about it. Remember, you don't respond to trolls, you don't argue with them, you just say *THWACK* and move on.
Have a nice day. ^_^
The enemies of Democracy are
If an outside developer adds modules or new code to the project or even makes a whole new project based on Mozilla and they accept the terms of the GPL but not the MPL, and explicitly state their addition is GPL only, then Netscape cannot use that new code in a closed source product without permission of the author. And actually this is why some have been reluctant to add to or enhance Mozilla. Any additions by outside developer could simply be hijacked by AOL/Nescape under the MPL.
Section 10 of the GNU General Public License explicitly allows dual licensing.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
1) Now what about putting this beast into Helix? Ladies & gentle(and not-so-gentle)men, a complete GPL desktop is at hand!
2) I wish Qt would do the same. No, I'm not a KDE user but all this "illegal status" of KDE makes me queasy. Not good for the Cause.
Not for me... works fine. I use M17 all the time, and it has not done this. I have multiple windows open all the time as I use http://www.blink.com to keep my bookmarks, and I have it set to open a new window for each bookmark I click on. Overall, not a bad product. In fact, I use it over IE at work, at least until I get a page that won't work under it because of bad html. I wish it has a setting for allowing bad html to be processed in a better fashion. Not everyone will go to the trouble of fixing web pages, and some of those pages have good content that I want. For instance, http://www.linuxapps.com Just my 2 cents...
You will never "find" time for anything. You must "make" it.
Mind you, it'd be a great deal better if some sort of licence could be come up with that solved all the various licence fights (think KDE/Debian etc.) and let people spend more time fighting and less arguing. Idealistic, I know, but...
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
I think I read that suck artical, those people are at a pretty big disjunkt from reality. It may be a little late, but I don't really we should ceed the entire browser market to Microsoft...
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Maybe you're not a developer, but Mozilla is currently built with A LOT of debugging information. Basically, this information makes it possible to figure out what went wrong, but it also (at least) quadruples file size, memory usage, etc.
So use it "not ever"? Hey, I'm a little disappointed with how much memory it is using, but I know that once they go into Beta at least, I'm sure most of the debugging information will be removed. Production release versions won't have any.
On top of all this, remember that the HTML rendering engine (Gecko), the heart of Mozilla, is really small and fast. The rest of the code might be lumbering around it, but when it comes down to rendering your HTML page, it sure is nice and tight.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Okay, I thought mozilla was dead too. Oh well.
For some fun, type in your browser:
about:mozilla
In Netscape, it displays a funny bible-ish story.
In IE4 and IE5, it displays a blue screen, a pun at how much Netscape crashes, even in NT.
Remember, there are only 2 things that have been proven to crash Windows 2000:
1. Badly written software
2. Badly written drivers
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The Galeon project will probably be one of the first to greatly benifit from the relicensing! Slashdot had a discussion about Galeon back in July.
Currently they cannot distribute the gtkembmoz.h file, due to licensing restrictions, which is needed for compiling the source code.
Through Galeon, this will also directally effect the GNOME project. Giving it a simple browser utilizing the Gecko rendering engine. We will, with evolution/nautilus(SP?) have seperate apps for browsing, e-mail, and file/system management! Along with the upcomming GPL of Star Office, GNOME is on the move to providing a complete productivity environment without the bloat!
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
They still get their NPL'd browser that they'll turn into a commercial product (and likely a new AOL frontend).
Open source HAS helped Mozilla. Netscape oversight hasn't.
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
When asked how Microsoft could release programs owned by its competitors, Gates replied cryptically, "That's the innovative part," and refused to elaborate.
Actually, he will be using the Napster distribution model. This allows you to give away other peoples IP and get away with it through sheer weight of numbers.
Funny how the FAQ doesn't say how the dual-licensing will work... IIRC, the GPL forbids the changing of its terms.
--
LoonXTall
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
1) Moderators: fscking QUIT IT. The parent post of this was NOT Offtopic. It may have not been particularly inspired but did not deserve to get modded DOWN.
2) He's right; Mozilla's rendering engine is faster than any other I've seen, probably even faster than Opera's. I have high hopes for the project laying the smack down on Internet Explorer's current majority.
Someone mod the parent post Underrated until it's back to 1, please.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
Please, let us all know where you downloaded the final release version of Mozilla you're using as the basis of your review! Oh... wait... you're complaining that there are bugs and memory problems in an ALPHA version of software. Doh!
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
It is ... close to being up to speed with Netscape with application zippiness.
How can you say that?
Netscape (atleast all the linux versions I've tried) is painfully slow... (OK, not as slow as Mozilla, but still pretty damn slow.)
Galeon, OTOH is BLAZINGLY fast... it loads faster, displays pages faster, and just works faster than Netscape (under Linux)..
I still use Netscape though, just because I get annoyed at Galeon's (current) Alpha state (ie. no MMB support, or drop downs for links - having to hit the 'back' button is a pain, especially when you always go back to the beginning of the page, instead of where you just were...)
and YES, I realize that these issues are being addressed (even as I write this?)... I'm very anxiously awaiting Galeon..
The MPL does not require that patches be submitted back to Mozilla.org. (Such a requirement would be even sillier on MPL'ed software that's not from Mozilla.org.) The MPL is also less viral than the GPL (MPL'ed code can be linked into proprietary apps like Netscape), so it's more like the LGPL IMO.
There won't be any GPL violations, because with dual-licensed software, you can choose to only abide by one of the licenses if you want to. So AOL can just follow the MPL and they'll be OK.
Oops, I forgot to login, then my brain went dead and I forgot my username :P
:P ) .. Windows is great for me and I would honestly pick it over even Debian 2.2 which is super duper now. :D And I can play Games! :) You can't play Carmageddon 2 on Linux... hehe
I find that totally not true...
My windows/Darkstep setup is far faster and just as stable as any Linux setup I've ever seen.. I never ever crash, freeze, bsod or anything else strange.. Not to mention fast.. I have a great bootup time (45 secs) and boot with 98% free resources and never have any swapping during a regular windows session (not including games
-TimmyC, Tech Guru
I think you just agreed with what he said, it'll render an html page real nice. Well, zippa-dee-do! Hurray for html rendering, it only took 2 years. When will the rest of it be ready for prime time? If anyone wants to start a pool, I'll take 2010.
Certainly a good thing now, as Mozilla is becoming an important component in a number of Gnome apps. Dunno how this will affect existing GPLed HTML renderers, though.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Please, let us all know WHEN anything other than an ALPHA version will be available.
gc
I can see the argument for "not now", but I don't understand where the "not ever" comes from. It's my understanding that the universe is a dynamic system...with things being in a constant state of flux, especially artifacts of human endeavors, it's not reasonable to say "not ever".
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Maybe I'm out of it, but could someone please explain what the MPL is? Is it a Mozilla-specific license (Mozilla public license)?
In Netscape, omitting </TABLE> will leave you with utterly blank space. So the example fails not because of a missing </td> or </tr> (or </body> or </html>) but the unclosed <table>.
The HTML spec encourages you to omit unnecssary tags. They clearly indicate which tags are required and which are optional. It's generally pretty sensible too: you can't have a <td> in a <td>, so you know starting a new table cell must also end the first one.
For real fun, read the explanation as to why <head> and <body> are no longer required.
M14 was a piece of crap. I have a cronjob download the new build every night and it's amazing the progress Mozilla has made since M17-M18 .... it's very usable now.
As for a code split, I don't see that as very likely, given the immense size of the project. Sure, it's happened before with larger projects, but that's been with projects developers mostly understood because they'd been working with them for years..... Mozilla is too new to split. Most outside developers aren't knowledgable of all the code. If it does split, it'll be a few years.
I agree. As soon as I saw this I was thinking how this would solve problems with Galeon. Until now to make Galeon work you download the entire Mozilla source from a separate site, and then compile. Now distributioning binary rpm's and deb's or whatever will be no problem. This will also resolve potential problems for Eazel and the Nautilus browser/filemanager with is going to use the gecko technology as a core. Since Eazel extends Gnome and Gnome is LGPLed and GPLed there could have been linking problems. Now nobody can say the license is Mozilla's problem. Mozilla is also getting more and more outside developers all the time. I admit, the Netscape version of Mozilla may flop, but the technology will continue to be used in various places. It already is being used in many embedded devices.
IMHO, triple licensing is needlessly complex, and renders all 3 licenses essentially meaningless.
Jono
OOOh, based on RMS's view of the MPL, Galeon was violating the GPL(and it was licensed under the GPL, right?).It was linking to Mozilla, and the GPL says that you can't link to other software that has other restrictions or conditions. I guess they should be real happy now.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
This will make it easier for both open-sourcers (galeon) and companies that can't do full open-source (netscape) to make versions of the project, but it won't make it any easier to bring in code from other (open-source) projects. Also, isn't one big point of having a single license for a project that you can always merge two forks if each has interesting/useful code?
A better solution would have been to create a "MPL 2.0" that says "you may relicense this code under the GPL 2.0 or higher." Assuming the MPL has one of those sneaky "or later a version of this license" clauses.
The shareholder is always right.
20 crashes of pre-release software is hardly out of the ordinary - I've been developing a computer game over the past year, and it has crashed about as much. Ditto for nearly ANY windows app I've written, of any appreciable size.
I found Mozilla to be a high quality implementation of a web browser - that's why I liked it.
Microsoft is porting stuff to the GNU/Linux system.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Because if it was only under the GPL, Netscape wouldn't be allowed to make the code part of a proprietary product. With the MPL they can do that. They want to be able to have a Netscape 6 that's based on Mozilla but can include their own proprietary changes. But I believe that the MPL doesn't allow other companies to take the code and make it part of their own proprietary product. The BSD license would have allowed that as well.
It's too bad it had to be so goddamn important to use the MPL or the GPL for this project. GPLing Mozilla isn't agreeable to Netscape, and portions of the Linux crowd seem to dislike the MPL.
So the best solution they can come up with is dual licensing?
Maybe when they decided to open source Netscape, they should've BSD-licensed the whole friggin thing. Of course doing that now is probably impossible due to GPL portions that have been integrated. But it sure would've simplified things. Keep the commercial people happy, and keep the software free.
The GPL has caused a backlash, creating this license quagmire that we see today. I understand the objective of the GPL - somewhat akin to fighting fire with fire when stacked against commercial vendors. The BSD guys more-or-less try to say "can't we all just get along?"
I used to strongly favor the GPL. Lately, though I've seen instances like this where it tends to bite everyone in the rear, including the free software developers.
Anyhow - the moral of the story is: think carefully about the objective of your software before choosing a license.
Best regards,
SEAL
You know, before you berate others for posting brain-dead posts, you might first ensure that yours is on target too.
You first link points to RMS' views on the Netscape NPL. While he does briefly mention the MPL, most of the article refers to the NPL. This might be confusing to someone who isn't aware of the distinction.
--
That makes you wonder just how long it will be before people start to say that they run GNOME instead of XYZVendor's distro
If they want everyone to be able to reuse the code, why don't they just BSD the whole thing?
Because they want the rights back for any changes to the codebase. With copyleft licenses such as MPL and GPL, mozilla.org gets rights to use the changes, which could remain a company's "precious trade secret" under non-copyleft licensing.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hear me now, believe me later, Mozilla is a failed project. It's not a useful browser, that is if you do more then read slashdot. Yow want to click on a link on shoutcast and have xmms load? You want Java? You want a browser that doesn't take up more memory then Homer does food at the all you can eat buffet? Then don't use Mozilla. Not now, not ever.
This is just a way for a failed project to salvage itself. By hoping that someone else(because they haven't been able to) will be able to make a browser that's 1/4 of what even Netscpae 4 is, let alone IE5.
The only way people will use any part of Mozilla, is if it's parts of other programs. Be it AOL software, Natualius, or whatever.
This isn't flamebait. It really isn't. But to say that Mozilla is useful for anything besides light browsing for more then 15 minutes at a time(before it segfaults) is just wishful thinking and sour grapes at IE5.
I really hope this last ditch effort saves something from the Mozilla project. Maybe other people other then Netscape/AOL employees will start to work on it and finally release something I'm not embarased to say is an open source project.
Good luck Mozilla....you're going to need it.
No matter what the application there are always myriad screams of "if it was released under the GPL it would be stable and have reasonable features now" due to the breadth of eyes looking at it. There's never been a test case with the following characteristics: 1) the project is languishing in the eyes of the public 2) there is an interest in the project 3) it languished under a license that wasn't the GPL.
<p>
I hope this makes mozilla or GNU-Mozilla very succesful but I wonder if it will really happen or not. Time will tell. It will be major egg on the face of the GPL zealots if it doesn't happen though.
"This is a great day for Microsoft innovation," said CEO Bill Gates, "and a great day for computer users too. By releasing programs like WordPerfect, Oracle, AOL's client software and Apple's OS X under this license, we are paving the way for further innovations by Microsoft."
When asked how Microsoft could release programs owned by its competitors, Gates replied cryptically, "That's the innovative part," and refused to elaborate. Further questioning from reporters was discouraged by the large number of well-armed press officers and public relations interns. Instead, reporters were directed to what were described as "handouts and press releases," but which actually appeared to be salvaged dumpsters marked "ORACLE" and "AOL" filled with scrounged CD-ROMS.
Shares of Corel, Oracle, Time-Warner/AOL and Apple crashed during heavy trading following the announcement.
Free Software Foundation guru Richard M. Stallman could not be reached for comment. An associate said, "He's just mad he didn't think of it first."
Carousel is a lie!
How can you criticize the stability when you used M14. I think 16 is the current one now (I don't use Mozilla), so if you're going to bash Mozilla at least try the latest version so you can do it fairly.
1. The recent builds are MUCH better than just a few weeks ago, much less M14. It really is starting to shape up nicely.
2. I beleive the MPL allows Netscape (and only Netscape) to release the code under their own licence. If there own licence happens to be the GPL then that's their right.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
A browser SHOULD be a little more picky about poorly written HTML, otherwise it encourages it and forces every other browser to parse broken HTML in EXACTLY the same way. A standards compliant browser will be blamed for not displaying pages "correctly" when it's actually the broken HTML that is to blame.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
My understanding is that the Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a subset of the GNU Public License (GPL). Thus the MPL is a GPL license with additions. This means that dual licensing the code shouldn't be any problem. Of course, every time I try to read those things I glaze over.
Point the second, RE "whatever that means": I didn't know either, so I used a search engine.
- Here's RMS's take on MPL.
- An alternate view.
- And a nice list of license types from gnu.org
Point the third: your post was as nearly content-free as possible. Do a little brain work next time.This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Catch my point? :-)
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest