Mozilla Relicensing

bluephone writes: "Today, the bits go into the tree to relicense Mozilla under a triple license, MPL/GPL/LGPL. What this means, for those of you who aren't too up on this stuff, is that when YOU take the code, and make your own product, you now have a triple choice as to what license you want to distribute your code under. Read the FAQ here."

Comments

Dear GOD!

[Anonymous Coward]

What shall we do.

Re:Dear GOD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool! Light a up a few, and hold a torchlight parade!

Thar's gonna be trouble!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait 'till Sheriff Stallman hears about this!

IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[Gerv]

Note: we have only relicensed 6,000 files, using Netscape's ability to relicense files under the NPL. We have a bunch more of those to do (with different comment structure), and then we have to ask permission for the ones covered by the MPL.

This is the very beginning of the process. The story erroneously implies it's finished. It's not.

Gerv

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[bluephone]

Yes, I meant to have the word BEGIN after the word bits. It should have read "Today the bits begin to go in..."

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[SilentChris]

"This is the very beginning of the process. The story erroneously implies it's finished. It's not."

Unfortunately, it is. Flamebait as it might be, very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore. That means an equal few are using its components. Add to that the advances Microsoft has made with IE in Pocket PC 2.0 (full Media Player functionality) and this particular open source team is, unfortunately, playing catchup.

There's a reason why AOL hasn't switched its users over to Netscape, and it has very little to do with licensing agreements with MS. They need a *fully-functional, fully-crashproof* browser to put on a multitude of devices. Microsoft took 5.5 tries to get it right, Netscape is up to 6 but unfortunately threw out a lot of code in the process. Reinventing the wheel can be difficult when you're up against a multibillion dollar company.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Netscape/Mozilla project is important, if for no other reason than competition. MS finally got an OS stable (Windows 2000) when they were beginning to lose share in the server market. As long as there is *some* alternative to IE, there will be improvements in both software packages. Until that happens, though, I will be using IE when I'm on a Windows box.

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[Kithraya]

very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore. That means an equal few are using its components. Add to that the advances Microsoft has made with IE in Pocket PC 2.0 (full Media Player functionality) and this particular open source team is, unfortunately, playing catchup.

What, if anything, does a pitiful, scaled-down, pseudo-browser for a handheld have to do with Mozilla?


They need a *fully-functional, fully-crashproof* browser to put on a multitude of devices. Microsoft took 5.5 tries to get it right

"A multitude of devices" is hardly the phrase that comes to mind when thinking of IE. Windows desktop and Windows handheld. In my book, that's two platforms. That's nothing compared to the actual multitude of platforms on which Mozilla runs.


MS finally got an OS stable (Windows 2000) when they were beginning to lose share in the server market

Given the multitude of security problems in the last few months causing windows machines to drop like flies, I think some people might argue with you on "stable."

I would argue about stability on a different point. I'm running Windows 2000 on several of the computers I administer. Yes, in some cases, it's done its job very well. On others, stability is a joke. If I can go two days without having a complete lock-up, we consider it a winning week. Two days is certainly longer than most of their other operating systems, but somehow still doesn't compare favorably to my linux boxen. Yes, Windows 2000 has worked well in some situations, and no, I'm not going to sit here and scream that Microsoft produces nothing but bad products. But I do think it's important to note where their products do fail, and not continue to use them just because they have the pretty windows logo on the box.

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[SurfsUp]

Unfortunately, it is. Flamebait as it might be, very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore.

Err, sorry, you're living on another planet. Pretty well everybody running Linux is using either Netscape or Mozilla, increasingly Mozilla. Mozilla usage is obviously increasing rapidly.

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[Ilgaz]

Err, sorry, you're living on another planet. Pretty well everybody running Linux is using either Netscape or Mozilla, increasingly Mozilla. Mozilla usage is obviously increasing rapidly.

I guess some people are dreaming... The "usage" he mentions isn't Linux people, its the usage based on whole web audience...

Let me give you an example... Sometimes _real_ interesting personal homepages with counters gets mentioned on Slashdot stories. As they are _totally_ personal, they have counters too. Next time when such thing happens, you will have a chance to see IE has a huge majority on Slashdot too.

Mozilla is gaining popularity? Amongst geeks? yes (include me,since there are 10-20 builds I tried), speaking about majority of web audience? No.

If Mozilla fans forgets to be blinded by fanaticism, it will be good for Mozilla project too..

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[Everybody]

Unfortunately, it is. Flamebait as it might be, very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore. That means an equal few are using its components.

I don't think that the count of people using the broser has anything to do with the count of people using parts of the source. And why the heck do you think that the small count of actual mozilla browser users means the end of the relicensing process? That just doesn't make any sense.

The relicensing is very important for people who might use portions of the excellent mozilla code base in their own programs.

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[CBravo]

Damn, I was moderating you as (funny, +1) but I couldn't resist...

I used to be a windows user and I'm very lazy. The reason I joined linux is therefore a comfort one. However having seen the security problems with windows boxes lately I switched on the right moment.

And when you are using linux I found out that mozilla wasn't everything, but they did improve lately. Now for the important things...

I expect that everyone in the world wants easy computing. That requires a lot of qualities of your software. Security and ease of use are a few of 'm. But when I have to choose between security and ease of use... I choose security.

Mozilla may not be the easiest best implementation but it works on secure OS' and (remember Nimda?) it is secure up 'till now.

Re:IMPORTANT: we aren't done

[Rogerborg]

• Pretty well everybody running Linux is using either Netscape or Mozilla

Really? I find that Konquerer kicks Mozilla's nuts into it's throat so far as basic web browsing goes. And if I wanted the full, integrated, spinny, swooshy, commercial internet experience, I'd still have to use IE, not Netscape.

3 choices:

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like to go out of business: A) Next week, B) In a few months, or C) Kicking and screaming in about a year or two?

C) is really only available to the independently wealthy, as venture capitalists have figured out that FREE MEANS FREE, as in NO beer money.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exciting news. One step nearer total non-NPL-ness!

Interesting

[Angreallabeau]

Our company is seriosuily looking at Modzilla for a variety business applications. Having total control of the product gives up the flexibility to create some really cool app. for our clients. I think Mozilla, if marketed correctly, could start regaining market share from MS. Honestly, technology trends start at the fortune 500 level (in my opinion) - start there and it may have a chance to succeed. Grass roots support is not enough to take it forward.

Cheers,

-Angreal

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

In and around the lake
mountains come out of the sky
and they stand there

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

this is precisely as relevant as some crap about some license from mozilla which will never ship anyway so I don't give a fuck

Cool

[Guillaume Ross]

Now people will say dumb stuff about THREE licenses at the same time, because they never read it.

number of choices

[jesser]

when YOU take the code, and make your own product, you now have a triple choice as to what license you want to distribute your code under

It's better than that -- you now have 8 choices for licensing when you redistribute Mozilla, because you can distribute the code under any combination of licenses. (The empty set is a choice because both the BSD and the MPL allow distributing just binaries.)

Re:number of choices

[jesser]

Ok, I'm an idiot. Mozilla is being relicensed under the MPL, GPL, and LGPL, not the BSD as I implied above.

Hoo Ya

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is >= post[1] and <= post[position(last)].

I rule.

Re:Hoo Ya

[Anonymous Coward]

>= post[1]

???

Not that it's wrong, but are you a VB programmer, by any chance?

Re:Hoo Ya

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think about Pascal?

Re:Hoo Ya

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I have in the past, but VB is not the only language to have that construct. The current language I use (which is better BY FAR than VB), has the same construct.

Re:Hoo Ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Pascal counts from 1?

I figured a teaching language would at least attempt to teach "the right way".

License Question

[Whyte Wolf]

If some of the original files (dbm, expat, jpeg etc.) are still being licensed under their original licenses (BSD, MIT etc.) how is that going to affect the overall GPL compatiablity of the triple-license scheme for the whole project? And if, as I suspect, it will make the whole Mozilla project incompatible with the GPL, what was the point of the tripple licensing scheme?

just wondering.

Re:License Question

[Gerv]

Files under those licenses can be combined with GPLed code, so it's not a problem.

Gerv

Re:License Question

[Dauphin]

Actually, the dbm files appear to be under the *original* BSD copyright (ie, the one with the advertising clause) so they are not compatible with the GPL. Haven't we been over this before?

Re:License Question

[Zigg]

Did they come from Berkeley? (I should know, but I don't.) If so, the advertising clause is null and void by order of the Regents, and so it is therefore a non-issue.

...waiting for the 2-minute mandatory posting waiting period to clear...thanks, Slashdot, for discriminating against those who can think and type quickly...

But...

[reynaert]

What about the Artistic license? The Python license? The Common Public License? The Sleepycat license? The Nethack General Public license?

Why did they choose just 3 licenses, when the Open Source Initiative approves of 23 licenses?

Re:But...

[dveditz]

Because MPL/NPL code can already be combined with code under all those other licenses. Due to its restrictive nature the GPL must be specially accomodated in order to combine MPL and GPL code.
Since mozilla.org would like to see Mozilla used as widely as possible they have decided to do the extra work required to make this combination possible

Re:But...

[Zigg]

I think most people missed the humor here... :-)

Ooooh Ahhhh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Licensing... so fucking what. I'll do whatever I damn well please with it. Fuck what the 'developers' want. I'll piss in their eye and blow my putrid shit up against their face so hard they'll wish they were dead. So fuck licensing. I'll do whatever I want with Mozilla. I have no respect at all for software developers. They're probably gay anyways.

Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failure

[Proud Geek]

The Mozilla project is a great success of the Open Source Community. It has spawned so many good projects like Bugzilla and Tinderbox. It has also ushered in a new era of cooperation between commercial entities and the community with the release of both Mozilla and the proprietary Netscape browser based on the same source code. The resources required to organize a project of this size and complexity were until recently thought to be beyond the range of Open Source.

Even though the browser itself is a technical failure, being slower and more buggy than Opera and Konqueror, and even Internet Exploder, the project is one of the great successes of our Community. This relicensing is a further ambitious step for the good of the community that hasn't been tried on a project of this scale before. I wish the best of luck to the Mozilla people, and may your name live on long after your browser has died!

Re:what this means

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an idea for how we can increase national security without trampling on anyone's rights. Require everyone to call their Mother once every day or so. (If you don't call your Mother, you should be locked up anyway.) You must tell your Mother everything you've been up to lately. This does not violate any civil rights, since you don't have any with your Mother anyway. Then, the FBI can go ask all the Mothers in the country if their kids have been up to no good. In fact, the Mothers will probably call the police first, and tell them you've been into some shady business, and need a good talking to to put some sense into your head, and maybe you'll get a decent job with normal hours.

Hope this helps - don't blow us up, please
Mohammed al-Fakwadi

unnecessarily confusing

[surfacearea]

Netscape lost the browser war in the yesteryear, so perhaps this is a scheme to boost morale among its developers. "today we shall fight a licensing war! AGAINST OURSELVES!"

and so on, and so forth.

Re:unnecessarily confusing

[WhiteKnight07]

I thought it was Microsoft's job to fight wars over software licensing.....

Re:unnecessarily confusing

[marm]

Not sure this is a good idea for Mozilla.

Remember, last time Netscape found itself in a war, their product went from the really rather good Netscape 3.0 to errr... Confusicator 4.0. Only since they basically admitted defeat did Mozilla start getting reasonable again.

Hey, maybe whoever suggested the relicensing is a TrollTech saboteur? I mean, Konqueror and Opera both use Qt, and Qt already has like 3 licenses. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Mmmm, on second thoughts, maybe I should leave those toadstools in the garden alone in future...

BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll remember this post whenever I get mod points and see a post by you... I'll mod them all down, faggot "first post"er... I don't care if people M2 me unfair, i'm helping get rid of fag users like you...

Your days of karma whoring are over!

Re:BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd return the favor, for somebody who takes the flamebait, but you didn't have the ballz to post using your real slashdot ID. ;)

Re:BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

But what's the fun in that?

Re:BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL, don't we all? :)

Re:BWAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure as hell do, YoU CoCKsuCKInG LaMEaSSeD LUsER!!

(get it? :)

Is it just me...

[cdraus]

or is licensing (in this case at least) getting out of control? Sheesh, I have enough trouble understanding the nuances of ONE license let alone THREE. Then you have interactions between each of the licenses, mutual exclusions maybe... my mind shudders at the mere thought of it. I'm sure the lawyers have thought about all this, but it just seems strange to me to have three different licenses. Oh yeah, the FAQ confuses me even more... maybe I'm just a confused person.

Re:Is it just me...

[reynaert]

They're just fixing an old mistake. People have been complaining for a long time that Mozilla wasn't GPL. Now they let you choose.

What are the effects of this? Simple:

• Netscape chooses their Netscape/Mozilla Public License, and can still do their binary only releases.
• People developing things based on Mozilla, like the Galeon team, can treat Mozilla like any other piece of GPL code.

Releasing code with multiple licenses isn't so unusual. For example, for Perl you can choose between the GPL and the Artistic License.

There are no interactions between the different licenses, you just pick one and ignore the other(s).

Re:Is it just me...

[mvc]

What this means is that you can choose to license it under any ONE of the three licenses. That means if you already understand one of them, you don't have to bother with the others. Easier, not harder.

Re:Is it just me...

[ZxCv]

There isn't any conflict from having three licenses. The licenses are compatible (meaning no conflicting terms between them) and having the multiple licenses is mostly for the benefit of those redistributing the code-- that person is free to license it under any one or combination of the licenses.

Re:Is it just me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite.

The three licenses may be compatible, but that's besides the point.

If you have the copyright on the code, you can release it under as many (possibly incompatible) licenses you want. The person using the software then picks which of the licenses he wants to adhere to.

I.e., I can release my own software under proprietary and GPL terms. You pick. This is for instance how Qt works (you pay $$, you get a proprietary license. else you get GPL). You _don't_ get to mix and match clauses from the different licenses though. It's 'atomic'.

Re:Is it just me...

[mandolin]

The licenses are compatible (meaning no conflicting terms between them)

Of course if you get really pedantic, you'll notice the MPL is on the list of GPL-incompatible licenses, but the MPL allows a module to be licensed under other licenses (including GPL), so...

Re:Is it just me...

[ZxCv]

I never said the person could mix and match different parts of the licenses. I said they could redistribute under any combination of the licenses they obtained it under. For example, in this case, someone will be able to license a Mozilla derivative under MPL+GPL+LGPL or MPL+GPL or MPL+LGPL or GPL+LGPL, etc etc. Or they can just license it under one of them.

Read a little closer next time before jumping to reply ;-)

Re:Why can't the GPL just go away

[Gerv]

This relicensing is all about letting more members of the free software community use our code, while maintaining at least the standards of copyleft required by the MPL. It's not about any license being better or worse than another.

Gerv

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, take a look at this guy's past posts... maybe he got 50 karma and needed to lower it so he could get more?

Bugroff License?

[refactored]

Sigh! NPL,GPL,LGPL! It sounds like its past time for the Bugroff licence.

http://www.geocities.com/cy_ent/bugroff.html

Simply stated, the Bugroff license says...
The answer to any and every question relating to the copyright, patents, legal issues of Bugroff licensed software is....

Sure, No problem. Don't worry, be happy. Now bugger off.

Follow the link for more on my reasoning and why the GPL is cosmically speaking a bad idea.

Re:Bugroff License?

[dveditz]

Good idea or bad, the GPL exists and its terms prevented GPL'd projects from taking advantage of Mozilla code. This is a workaround on the Mozilla end so GPL'd projects can embed our engine as easily as proprietary projects can.

Re:Bugroff License?

[reynaert]

From the Bugroff license page:

The GPL is just begging somebody to take it to court.

People often say this. But nobody has ever taken it to court. The reason? The lawyers can't find a loophole or error in it, so nobody dares to risk it.

Re:Bugroff License?

[kevinank]

His entire argument seems to rest on the idea that laws are worthless. Quite aside from ignoring the genuinely beneficial impacts of a system of laws, simply ignoring power and control structures isn't a very promising strategy.

It is as if he were arguing that to win a soccer game you should stop all that messing around with the feet stuff, pick up a notepad and start writing poetry instead. Arguing that the rules are stupid because they don't allow you to use the most useful appendages you have misses the point.

The legal system simply is. We live within it. Pretending it doesn't exist is even more useless than spending all of your life worrying about it.

Re:Bugroff License?

[Anonymous Coward]

People often say this. But nobody has ever taken it to court. The reason? The lawyers can't find a loophole or error in it, so nobody dares to risk it.

Occam's Razor: GPL'd software is of such low quality that it doesn't behoove anyone to steal the code.

Re:Bugroff License?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively none of the GPL'd code is good enough to rip off.

Re:Bugroff License?

[refactored]

The legal system simply is. We live within it. Pretending it doesn't exist is even more useless than spending all of your life worrying about it.

The legal system is, but does nothing sane for you. I don't say pretend it doesn't exist, I say ignore it. Don't feed the Jackals.

I have recently gone through the saga of buying a house, ie. lots of legal stuff. As a programmer I can see the contracts and legalese has lots of holes. The agreements with the banks translate roughly as "all your bases belong us".

What can you do? Shut up and sign. The legal system protects you? Bah!

Inertia and "Don't kill the goose..." is what protects you.

Re:Bugroff License?

[reynaert]

What can you do? Shut up and sign

Move to a country with better laws ;)

Re:Bugroff License?

[refactored]

I did. See what it got me. The exchange rate crunched my funds by a factor of three and forcing me to take yet another homeloan even though I had payed off my first.

Seriously, look closely and you will see your primary protection is the "Don't kill the goose than lays the golden eggs" factor.

Stop laying eggs, and the cooking pot looms.

Three times the flames!!!

[rvaniwaa]

I guess this now means that there are three times as many people on /. that will flame one for releasing a derived product.

Licenses ???

[Red Moose]

This is great news, and one day, in the future, maybe even GNU/Stallman/Linux will be Really Free under the joint MPL/GPL/LGPL license.

And they say the corporate world is full of beurocracy (OK I know I can't spell that)? What happened to just old-fashioned bloody copyright: "I made it, shove off". Give it away for free if you want, and then if the company every goes bust, the source is made available. And this would also stop crap companies being rescued by last-minute buyouts as they would have no software assets.

Problem solved.

Next: how to prove that I own the idea of software.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

People still use Mozilla? They must be morons. Konqueror and IE6 are so much better.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it's just damn funny to, once you have achieved the greatness that is 50 karma, to blow it in various stupid ways. ;)

Licenses are getting too confusing.

[Waffle Iron]

To solve the licensing issues once and for all, I propose the following Inconsistent Public License: (IPL)

You may only distribute this work under the following terms:

1. If you distribute this work, it must not be distributed in a manner that satisfies these terms.

End of license.

Re:Licenses are getting too confusing.

[An Onerous Coward]

Call it "Godel's Public License" (GPL) and it could become very popular among the already confused.

Re:Licenses are getting too confusing.

[antic]

Or the Inconsistent Pubic License that allows the software to be used only while naked?

Re:Licenses are getting too confusing.

[Pseudonym]

Note that the licence is trivially satisfiable by simply not distributing the work.

Re:Licenses are getting too confusing.

[Waffle Iron]

Note that the licence is trivially satisfiable by simply not distributing the work.

sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});

True enough. I can't argue logic with someone who has a sig like yours.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Xiphoid Process]

Damn, I hadn't realised that the Mozilla browser had failed as I use it daily on 5 different computers without having had it crash for well over a month. I guess the fact that it is the most standards compliant browser ever made and that it is a joy to use are sure signs of its failure. It must all be an illusion. ;-P

TTechnical Failure?

[Bruce Perens]

This seems to be rather a back-handed compliment.

You obviously haven't tried 0.9.4 . It's really quite good, both faster and much less buggy than previous releases. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Hey, I've had my own criticisms of Mozilla. But it looks as if they may have been right, and the rest of us may have been wrong.

Bruce

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[bluephone]

But it looks as if they may have been right, and the rest of us may have been wrong.

Thanks. It takes a big person to even admit they MIGHT be wrong. :)

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Doktor Memory]

"Faster and much less buggy than previous [mozilla] releases" is damning with faint praise, and only points out the extent to which they are still losing ground to IE.

0.9.4 on *nix still falls over and dies regularly when attempting to view sites with plugin (specifically, flash and real) content, nontrivial ECMAscript or complex table structures. It might be suitable for limited-purpose use (e.g. viewing internally designed web apps that you have personally vetted against mozilla), but it is still lightyears away from being an acceptable general-purpose web browser.

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[BitwizeGHC]

I dunno about real but I've had no problems viewing Flash sites. Mozilla even handles reasonably complex java well, if I use the plug-in from JRE 1.3.1. Which is much, much more than I can say for Netscape 4.x releases. If I keep it open for hours and hours, eventually it will act funny, segfault and crap out but it lasts longer, on average, than IE ever would.

Nearly all Web sites that render properly on IE (barring those that only include IE-specific JavaScript, or sniff for browser make and model and reject Netscape 6/Mozilla) look fine on Mozilla.

For Windows and Linux, at least, Mozilla is a very usable, solid browser for the Real World.

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

See IE actually starts so fast that you don't need to keep it open for days at a time.

Sure mozilla, which can take up to 30 seconds to open on slow hardware, well once you get that thing fired up you definatly don't want to close it.

But IE on the same hardware takes less than 5 seconds i don't need to leave it open for 24 hours straight, when i wanna see a website i just open it.

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[BitwizeGHC]

On linux Mozilla starts up usually in under 10 seconds. Possibly under 5 if it's still lingering in the disk cache.

Under Windows? mozilla -turbo .... 'nuff said.

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the -turbo option, it allows mozillas bloat to suck down memory even when your not using it! yeah! now that's a great feature!

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

So now i can have an excellent fast stable browser that's integrated into my os using a small fraction of my memory (IE) and also a big bloated slow buggy peice of beta software sucking up memory at the same time? (Mozilla)

Good idea!

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

"See IE actually starts so fast that you don't need to keep it open for days at a time."

That's because a big part of IE are loaded when the OS starts; the "IE" you see is the GUI and a few extra bits.

..now, if most of Mozilla's libs were loaded when Linux started..

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

iexplore.exe has caused an illegal operation and will be shut down immediately.

Oops.

Yep - seems stable all right (and yes, this is under Win 2K)

Re:TTechnical Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

IE loades slow buggy code that can only charitably be called beta and you don't get a choice about it. I don't see Moz forcing you to do the same.

weird stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Lgpl *and* GPL, why not just the GPL, geesh

Not a failure

[iserlohn]

The Mozilla browser is far from a failure. Recent releases preform very well against konq and opera. Mozilla is the only serious alternative to IE. Although Netscape 6 may be a failure in the market due to questionable positioning of product release, it should be a force to reckon with if Windows loses grip of the market.

Re:Not a failure

[agdv]

Mozilla is the only serious alternative to IE.

No way. Opera is pretty darn good too. And while I also have Mozilla, I don't think I'll be switching to it as a default browser under Windows till they support mouse gestures. Gotta love them. And having each web page as a child window is nifty too.

Re:Not a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do i need an alternative to IE? IE is fucking awsome. All the other browsers say "almost as fast as IE, almost as stable as IE, almost as this as IE, almost as that as IE". Fuck it, just run the real McCoy. IE is the best browser available, there's no need to use an imitation.

Re:Not a failure

[jesser]

Opera isn't viable for most people because its user interface is very confusing. For example, to import your Internet Explorer favorites into Opera's hotlist (which Opera doesn't do automatically), you have to right-click on an item in your hotlist, choose 'File' from a context menu with 10 items and 2 submenus, and then choose 'Import Internet Explorer Favorites...'. To disable javascript, you have to look in the "plugins" section of preferences.

There are also a few places where Opera is clearly sacrificing usablility for speed. Context menus don't appear until you lift the right mouse button, because of the gesture feature, which is great for power users but not very useful for most users. Accidentally moving the mouse cursor a tiny bit while trying to invoke a context menu causes the context menu to not appear, and sometimes results in a destructive action such as closing the window. Browser windows are constrained as MDI children, allowing them to appear faster, but making it difficult to use the browser for separate tasks at the same time.

It also has a few infuriating bugs, such as the way the command "opera http://www.slashdot.org/" opens a window containing both my home page and slashdot.org, with my home page in front.

I have to admit, though, Opera is amazingly fast, and the threaded javascript is impressive (you can interact with the browser or a web page while javascript on the page is caught in an infinite loop).

Re:Not a failure

[reynaert]

And having each web page as a child window is nifty too.

I consider that Opera's single most irritating 'feature'. Managing windows is the task of the window manager, not the application. Want to browse the web on two virtual desktops? You better start Opera twice. (And yes, even if you don't use Un*x, there is software to allow multiple desktops under Windows).

People everywhere are moving away from MDI interfaces. The latest versions of Word aren't MDI anymore. It will be cut from the next version of OpenOffice too.

Re:Not a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider MDI a necessity when we didn't have a toolbar, a useful hack when we did, and pointless when we use a BeOS/XP toolbar.

Which ain't yet.

Re:Not a failure

[reynaert]

Another thing I hate. We seem to be UI-incompatible :)

Re:Not a failure

[jesser]

(And yes, even if you don't use Un*x, there is software to allow multiple desktops under Windows).

Can you point me to some? Multiple desktops and textutils are the two major things I find lacking in Windows 98 compared to the Solaris/X/fvwm terminals at my school, and I've already figured out how to get textutils working (cygwin).

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh, right, the browser is a total flop. That's why major companies are using Gecko (Mozilla's HTML engine).

That's why my friends, both geek and non-geek, choose Mozilla >= 0.9.3 for their daily browsing over IE 4/5?

That's why there is now a browser that works, for all intents and purposes, on every modern OS? Jeez, this thing already runs on OS X, it runs on Linux, it runs under BSD and Solaris and Win32.

Not only that, the Modern skin is just fucking schweet :) (posting from Moz 0.9.4)

LGPL is automatically dual GPL/LGPL

[clausen]

LGPL is automatically dual GPL/LGPL. To quote from the LGPL:

3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices.

Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy.

Andrew

Re:LGPL is automatically dual GPL/LGPL

[reynaert]

Yes, but note that it says that you must alter the all the copyright notices. With several thousand files (and several comment styles), this is rather inconvenient. Thus the dual GPL/LGPL license.

Naaah.

[Bruce Perens]

You haven't used a self-referential and self-negating acronym. Essential for any Free Software project. Thus, it should be NCL, for NCL's a Consistent License.

Bruce

Re:Naaah.

[sharkey]

NCL's a Consistent License.

Shouldn't that be NIL for: NIL's an Inconsistent License?

Re:Naaah.

[Anonymous Coward]

NIL, NAIL, it's all rock and roll to me.

Re:Naaah.

[singularity]

Congratulations, you are the first to break (and therefore test) the NCL.

Since we do not have a fanatic like ESR to write a 20k discourse on your failure as a geek and as a human being, I will have to do.

<meta personality="esr" mood="gplbreak">

Since the basis of the NCL is to promote inconsistency, it is only natural for the name to be inconsistent with its use. Had you the slightest clue as to the philisophical basis on which life, itself, is based and the very reasoning behind the NCL, you would clearly see things as I do.

Since you are not enlightened, obviously, I feel the need to bang it into your head.

Stop the abuse! Stop the violation!
</esr>

Yeah, so what he said.

This post is hereby distributed under the NCL and is *NOT* copyright (c) 2001 Hank Zimmerman

Re:Naaah.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Self Inconsistant License", or SILi for short.

Re:Naaah.

[bentini]

Don't forget that NIL has significance in LISP, hence giving cool hackerness too it. Maybe even better, have it stand for NIL's a Consistent License. Hehe.

Re:Naaah.

[benb]

> Essential for any Free Software project.

Actually, the license seems to be a closed-source license. It doesn't give you rights to distribute the "work" in compliance with the license. I.e. (assuming there are no other licenses applicable to the "work") you can't distribute the "work".

But, since the author said, he "proposed [...] the License", does that imply that he encourages modifications to the license? Is the license text itself maybe available under Free Software terms? That would be consistent with the intention of inconsistency of the license.

Re:Naaah.

[Marasmus]

actually, there's no negation there, just recursion... How bout this?

NCL: "NIL's a Consistent License"
NIL: "NCL's an Inconsistent License"

This emulates the HURD acronym's style of definition (use codependent definitions to define nonsense). I'm too tired to really test the logic of this BS, but it sounds logically fit for the circumstance (thus, false). :)

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[reynaert]

Have you tried Mozilla recently? Since 0.9 I haven't found a serious bug, and it gets faster every release. If you think it's still too slow, try Galeon, which is Mozilla with everything non-essential stripped away.

Besides, Mozilla are the only free, complete, platform-independent browsers available (not counting thing based on Mozilla's components). Take a look at the list:

• Opera: Not free
• Konqueror: Tied to the KDE platform
• Netscape 4.x: Not free, and buggy as hell
• All the smaller browsers like Amaya lack support for one thing or the other: CSS, scripting, plugins, ...

This alone is enought to ensure that Mozilla never dies.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Jeffrey Baker]

Mozilla is more corrent, more stable, and faster than Konqueror and Opera. The constant whining of the KDE sycophant class cannot change this fundamental fact. Mozilla is designed to render HTML and XML documents, and to expose the DOM API to programs, according to W3C specifications. Konqueror is designed to increase the zeal of its sycophants. Both projects appear to be successful.

More people use Mozilla than you may realize. Mozilla is embedded in Galeon, the ascending champion of GNOME web browsers. It is also embedded in GNOME's file and desktop manager Nautilus. Also, it is embedded in the windows client for Bloomberg, the premier financial data and news service. It is not as prolific as Internet Explorer, but that is due less to technical merit than to market reality.

A triple choice

[ez76]

Three different ways to make no money off your labors ...

What will they think of next ...

Re:A triple choice

[philipm]

I think the money issue is kind of tricky.

You see, one can only put a value on actual property, not on information. That means that one can only protect property, since that is the only thing that has value.

The GPL attempts to treat information as property. One can not sell or buy information. One can only sell thin air and hope that some loser pays you for some noexistent property than he now thinks he has.

So you see, the GPL really protects "information" from being shared freely - exactly the opposite of what RMS wants.

So let them change the licences all they want, it doesn't actually affect the con job necessary to get the money from the customer.

Re:Another user to add to my moderation hit list :

[Anonymous Coward]

Which will likely mean that you'll post these messages, maybe mod one or two people down once, and then give up on it.

Unless you are a looser. Which is, of course, a distinct possibility.

Re:mozilla

[obi327]

offtopic my ass, anyone that opposes microsoft in any form i support

Re:Why can't the GPL just go away

[kevinank]

FWIW I think this is a wonderful thing. When the Moz team first started relicensing parts of the source base about a year ago it made it much easier to convince our lawyers to let us fiddle with the code.

Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[AT]

The idea that mozilla is slow and buggy is a myth. While it may have been true a six months ago, the most recent releases are extremely fast and stable. No surprise -- the basic functionality has been completed for a while, and most of the recent development has targeted speed and stability.

It now renders most content faster than IE. It is still a bit sluggish with some types of DHTML and Javascript, and the startup time is behind most other browsers.

It is extremely stable, mostly due to the talkback bug reporting system. Talkback automatically allows users to submit back bug reports complete with stack trace to the developers when a crash occurs. This system allowed the moz developers to target the bugs that make the most difference.

The browser may arguably be a failure, but not a technical failure.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

You are flat out lying. Stop it.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Error27]

>> The idea that mozilla is slow and buggy is a myth.

Generally, I'd agree. My only problem with mozilla is how long it takes to create a new window. If this were optomised then mozilla would be just about perfect.

I've been using mozilla as my primrary browser for a couple weeks now.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[WhiteKnight07]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but there is a patch for IE at windows update that adds a crash data talkback feature to IE. Seeing as it was Mozilla's talkback feature that has made it so stable, MS probably realized that the open source comunity was doing something better than they were oh my gosh! and now they are trying to catch up. :)

At the very least this confirms that the Mozilla development model is at least on par with Microsoft's, possibly even better. I view this as a good omen for the world of open source.

var x = openSource.community.karma.value;
x++;

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[matty]

My only problem with mozilla is how long it takes to create a new window.

Really? It takes about 1 second on my system (750mhz Duron/256mb, Debian 2.2r3). What kind of hardware do you have?

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? One second? On my computer (a P3-733) it is so fast that I can not tell the amount of time between clicking and the new window appearing. Oh, wait, I'm using Internet Explorer on Windows 2000, not Mozilla. Never mind.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[matty]

Ooohhh, good one! You're a real sharp guy, aren't ya, buddy? Proud of yourself? Did you think that one up all by your lonesome, or did YOUR MOM help you out?

IE on Windows 2000 is an excellent browsing platform (recent problems with auto-executing readme.eml notwithstanding) and anyone who says otherwise is lying or kidding themselves. We finally have a good browser for Linux and we're happy about it.

If you like W2K, USE IT! No one cares what you do (except YOUR MOM). Why do you bother with such childish comments anyway?

Oh, well, if it makes you feel better, help yourself. I certainly feel better now. :)

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, as it happens, I myself (different person from above AC) was quite happily using IE on Windows 2000, but then I made the foolish mistake of installing version 6.0. Now, the rightclick menu takes about ten seconds to pop up on a nearly top of the line system with a half gig of ram.

So now I've readopted Mozilla, which I used to use regularly back in the early milestones. Haven't stumbled across an unreported bug in a long while. (But then, I only use the browser.)

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

This might help with the context menu problem:
http://bluestarsoftware.de/html/english/index.ht m

I've never had the problem so I can't verify that it will help, but the registry changes it makes do work OK with IE6 (program is intended for IE5.5).

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[bellings]

It should be noted that both this post and the one above it were posted with the +1 bonus.

That doesn't say much about Mozilla, but it says a lot about me. And matty. And Slashdot. And you, for reading this drivel.

Go home.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Error27]

Mine takes closer to 3 seconds but even 1 second is too slow.

Slashdot's search feature is broken but someone had a link to a page where they had javascript set up to open up 100 new windows. He did a comparison of a bunch of different browsers and Mozilla was way worse then any of the competitors at openning new windows.

Openning new windows doesn't really matter under windows because windows browsers don't support the middle button. But under Linux I almost always use my middle button to open a new window instead of clicking with my left button. Right now for example I have 5 mozilla windows open.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[NutscrapeSucks]

FYI: Talkback was introduced by good ol' closed source Netscape at 4.5 or so. Of course, talkback itself had the nasty habit of crashing, so most disabled it.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[SurfsUp]

"My only problem with mozilla is how long it takes to create a new window."

Really? It takes about 1 second on my system (750mhz Duron/256mb, Debian 2.2r3). What kind of hardware do you have?

It takes at most 1/10th second on Opera, for comparison, IOW, effectively instant which is how I want it.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[pajor]

It takes at most 1/10th second on Opera, for comparison, IOW, effectively instant which is how I want it.
Check out Multizilla and see how fast those tabs popup.

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

It is slow & buggy, if you to convert me from windows then give a fast light browser for linux everything I tryed is slow. Opera is not slow but cant stand that damm ad window and your fonts in linux or horse shit even with AA. Windows 2000 rules!

Re:Mozilla Slow and Buggy is Myth

[WhiteKnight07]

heh, I never knew that....... oh and btw.....

BINK IS EVIL!!!

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[sfe_software]

I use Mozilla as my primary browser. I don't believe I've yet experienced a crash. Maybe the Windows version isn't as stable, but on Linux, Mozilla is about the best browser available (with Konqueror coming in a very close second).

It's not without its problems, but it's quite a good browser. You have to keep in mind that it's still in development (and probably always will be).

I do agree that the Mozilla project itself is doing all sorts of great things. It takes a lot of work to manage such a huge project (and its associated side projects), but I would not consider Mozilla a "technical failure"...

As for Opera, I've only used it a couple of times, but the MDI interface is just terrible, especially if you have more than one monitor. It's fast, but I just can't get used to the interface.

MOD THIS COCKSUCKING GARBAGE DOWN NOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are a moderater then you are a piece of shit. JEWS SUCK.

loooozer

[Anonymous Coward]

laaaah-hooooserrrrrrrrrr.

My post violated the comment oppresion filter.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I guess if it doesn't crash for you, therefore everyone else's problems must be an illusion.

For the "betterment of society"...

[Brad Wilson]

They should've made the code public domain. I mean, really, the only point of the GPL is to be anti-business. If you really are out for the betterment of humanity, that includes corporations...

Oops, shhh, I didn't mean to reveal the secret purpose of GPL. :-p

Re:For the "betterment of society"...

[Anonymous Coward]

What vested interest do you have in most corporations that you would give to them freely without having them give you anything in return?

Re:For the "betterment of society"...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't. I work for them and they pay me for my time and production. Or I sell my products to them and retain all rights.

Why do you feel the need to give freely to the masses and then worry about some big bad wolf coming and stealing what you made public?

Re:For the "betterment of society"...

[Brad Wilson]

The same vested interest I have in other strangers in the "false collective" known as society. None.

If I give away code, I truly give it away. I don't discriminate against people out to make money. I try and make money every single day of my life. So I guess the vested interest is "whatever company I'm working for today".

Re:For the "betterment of society"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya what are these anti-GPL zealots all CEOs or something?

Seriously, what do you think when the company you work for hijacks an open source projects code it's to your advantage?

Uh no, now that company doesn't have to hire as many programmers becuase it can just use BSD licensed code instead. What you think their gonna increase your salary or something becuase they are stealing all their code instead of paying someone to write it?

For those tinfoil hat types that think the GPL is a conspiracy to lower wages or put programmers out of work...think about it:

Companies that produce proprietary software can't use GPLed code, that means they actually have to HIRE programmers and PAY them to write code for their proprietary projects, instead of just taking BSD code and adding a few bells and whistles.

hello!

Re:For the "betterment of society"...

[lowieken]

Putting things into the public domain is NOT possible. Even if you really, really want to, legally spoken, you can't. You have rights you can't deny. As for the GPL being anti-business: GPL is -not- anti-business. It saves many businesses big bucks. They get a lot of decent software for free. GPL 's not even anti-software business. It creates huge opportunities. It creates opportunities for software services firms and custom-made products on top of GPL software. If you don't want to join this evolution, then go the way the dinosaurs went. GPL 's not even entirely anti-closed software business. It's anti-closed standards-closed software business. But hey, try to open a 10 years old prorietary document. You'll have one reason already to appreciate GPL. Besides: If you don't like GPL, don't use it. Nobody forces you. I would love to say I have a choice, but no point trying to get a Dell without paying taxes to a certain company. Suppose Dell was my office's IT equipment supplier (it is not). I would be forced to do spend money on things (Windows licenses) I feel are highly immoral to be obliged to purchase. Man, the GPL is built upon a clear vision. Disagree with the vision. But the GPL itself is not a vision. It's a legal document. Sorry chap, can't diagree with that. Can't be pro, can't be against. Use it or not, and feel good or not about using it. Do you feel threatened by the GPL? Strange, since I'm quite sure it's not Richard Stallman who's buying the White House! "Hey George, couldn't you help my friend a hand? He's trying to get this little Bill thing passed. No big deal, not difficult to remember. It's only five letters: SSSCA" Oops, shhh, I didn't mean to reveal the secret purpose of the millions for that presidential campaign. :-p

MOD THIS FUCKING COCKGOBBLING NIGGER UP NOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

i order you to m0d this post up too u fucking homo bastards!!

dont you know freedom=anarchy and anarchy is chaos

[Anonymous Coward]

the same republicans who want a free market economy and all that rot are going to give the airlines a bunch of tax money to keep them in buisness...
glad to know the free market works.....

stupid capitalists.

Ship?

[matty]

SHIP???

I'm not familiar with what you mean, I'm afraid. I'm using Mozilla0.9.4 under Debian 2.2r3 to send this and for ALL my web browsing. It is (finally) a browser that is as good as the latest versions of IE.

P.S. I know you're a Troll, but sometimes I just can't help it.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

look here
Quote from previous comment by cmowire:
And most of the time, when people work more than 9 hours, they are likely to spend a lot of time trying to get first posts to slashdot, making cubicle art, etc.

Aparently this guy's been dreaming of doing a first post for awhile. Finally, success.

Damn I wish my lifelong dream was this simple. :( So was today a longer than 9 hour day?

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

"a joy to use"

Oh puh-leez. Mozilla is slow and bloated as ever.

People that try and say Mozilla is better than IE are just liars.

Either their lying for karma or for the great free software empire or just to themselves, which exactly i don't know.

But i do know saying mozilla is fast and stable is a lie.

Because those are not copyleft licences

[dmoen]

Read the FAQ. Mozilla is not relicensable under the Artistic license, the Python licence, etc, because those other licences are not consistent with the Mozilla project's goals. Quote:

Why didn't you just relicense the Mozilla code under a non-copyleft license (like the MIT or BSD licenses) that would be compatible with all other possible licenses?

Because historically Mozilla code has always been released under some form of copyleft licensing, and we wish to continue to use copyleft provisions to promote sharing of modifications to Mozilla code.

Note that the Mozilla code can be combined with code licenced under many other Open Source licences, like the Python or BSD licences, so there isn't a licence compatibility problem with these licences.

My list

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) You're a moron

2.) You only get 5 points at a time, and only once every so often. My main account has 26 Karma, and going up all the time. It would take you months to mod me to 0 (if you know who I was), even if you could. And you wouldn't be able to concentrate on anyone else at the same time

3.) You probably couldn't because once you get enough 'Unfair' meta-mods, you lose mod capability
(see, the Moderation system is actually pretty abuse-proof)

4.) Who fucking cares about all of this anyway??

Re:Another user to add to my moderation hit list :

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't, you lying sack of shit! If you do, copy and paste it here, fuckwad!

Most standards-compliant browser?

[slamb]

I guess the fact that it is the most standards compliant browser ever made [...]

Prove it. I'll make a contrary assertion: Internet Explorer 6 is the most standards-compliant browser ever made. I'm not going to support it at all, but you didn't support your "fact" either.

I've heard this statement given as fact a lot, and I don't buy it. Last time I tried to make CSS pages on Mozilla, it seemed to have some important CSS-1 stuff broken. (And before a Bugzilla person jumps in: I don't really want to spend the time checking Mozilla's complete CSS compliance and creating bug reports. I just want people to stop spouting "facts".)

Re:Most standards-compliant browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, when mozilla fucks up and fails to really support a standard they just hide behind the handy old excuse "well that's bug, it's supposed to be compliant, it's still beta after all". Well bug or not, if the shit isn't rendering properly then it's not compliant.

Re:Most standards-compliant browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could really give a shit about standards compliance -- I just want to know if something is supposed to work, and that requires *documentation*, something Mozilla/NS6 totally lacks. Providing a link to w3c.org does not cut it.

Re:Most standards-compliant browser?

[Xiphoid Process]

*Yawn*

http://www.webstandards.org/netscape6.html

Ok, you're turn.

Re:Most standards-compliant browser?

[xophos]

>>Internet Explorer 6 is the most standards-compliant browser ever made That might be true if you define standards like microsoft does: Well, we make the standard software, so it is allways standards-compliant.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[rodolfo.borges]

it may be fast to render a page, but it take more than a second just to open a right-click menu or any simple action like that. WHY?
(on a 750MHz K7 with 256Mb memory, running nothing else)

this is very anoying.

To Gerv

[matty]

Thanks for reading this thread and replying. :)

One question: there is only one drawback to Mozilla on Linux left for me, which is that I can't access my credit card account at CapitolOne.com. They say my browser (Netscape 6.0) is Non-Compliant, but they're "working on it".

Do you have any insight into this?

Thanks for all your (and everyone else's) great work! (and for putting up with all our whining while we were waiting to get to this point :)

Cheers!

Re:To Gerv

[Gerv]

> Do you have any insight into this?

No immediate hope of a good resolution as far as we know :-(

Gerv

Re:To Gerv

[matty]

I would if I could find a bank that offers 9.9% interest standard on a VISA card. That's all I have with them (the credit card).

Any suggestions?

Re:To Gerv

[Chemical]

Finding another bank probably wont help. I use Wells Fargo, and both Mozilla, Netscape 6 (which I don't use) and IE 6 are incompatable with their online banking. It tells me I need Netscape or IE 4.0 or better. I had to download Commnicator just so I could check my ballance.

Re:To Gerv

[reynaert]

You can make Mozilla claim it's Internet Explorer. See this page.

You want to put something like this in your user.js file:
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90; COM+ 1.0.2204)"

Often, the sites work even if you don't have Internet Exploder. The sad thing is that you'll show up as IE in the logs.

Re:To Gerv

[grahams]

Well, it wouldn't hurt to see if it could be filed as an Evangelism "Bug" :)

sean

Re:To Gerv

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how you prefer to run your card acct, but if you're able to pay the balance off each month the interest rate doesn't matter. Makes it easer to shop for cards, only the yearly fee matters..

Re:To Gerv

[J'raxis]

Usually sites dont check the entire User-Agent string, just enough to make sure its right. Everything after the MSIE 5.5 portion is often unique to your particular OS setup. Preloaded versions will sometimes identify the OEM or whatnot (DigExt, Compaq, etc.), and special versions of IE (AOL, WebTV) also get labeled differently there. Something like:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; FuckYou/1.0; etc., etc., etc.)

might work, and you get to tell them what you think of their policies. :)

Re:To Gerv

[Anonymous Coward]

Yearly fee? Why in the world would you pay a yearly fee?

Re:To Gerv

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have good credit, Citibank will do it. They offerred me a 9.9% fixed or a 12.9% with a 1% cash back. I took the cash back card. Give them a call and ask them if you can get a 9.9% fixed rate, if you have good credit I bet they'll say they can.

Re:To Gerv

[matty]

Cool, thanks! :)

Re:To Gerv

[wdr1]

FWIW, I use Netscape 6 with Bank of America's online banking. Better than Netscape 4 due to Mozilla's improved table rendering.

Re:To Gerv

[Anonymous Coward]

Any real geek would understand exponential functions and pay off their full balance each month. Loans with interest rates above 7% are for stupid people.

Re:the error messages are being homosexual...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your free speech violated the postercomment oppression filter. Freedom aborted.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[matty]

How odd. On my Debian 2.2r3 system, there is only the slightest pause when right-clicking in a window for the menu to come up (I have Duron 750/256mb).

Opening a new window (Ctrl-N) takes a little more than a second.

Regardless, all this stuff has gotten better with each successive release, so hang in there, all the performance issues will eventually just go away. :)

Re:dont you know freedom=anarchy and anarchy is ch

[Anonymous Coward]

well of course the free market isnt good for the majority of the people.
working conditions and wages and stuff wold be horrible for the majority if we had a free market.
thats why the free market sucks, and either you agree that it sucks, or you dont give money to help out buisness'
the market will fix itself.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one! Wow, razor-sharp, aren't ya?? So nice to have you around.

Lord knows it doesn't require much hardware to run W2K or WXP, does it?

What a fucking idiot, you can't even Troll effectively!

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[reynaert]

Well, with IE you can't disable popup windows. It has no themes. It isn't very standards compliant. Seems like a pretty losing browser to me.

You've probably tried Mozilla 0.6 and based your judgment on that. Well, that version is crap. Everybody agrees on that.

Just try a recent version. Since 0.9, Mozilla has never crashed on my box. Completely unlike IE. Once started, it's just as fast as any other browser (it still starts slowish, but it's way better than it used to be.)

Context menus

[yerricde]

Context menus don't appear until you lift the right mouse button, because of the gesture feature, which is great for power users but not very useful for most users.

In IE 5.5, context menus don't appear until you lift the right mouse button, and you can exploit this to get around JavaScript right-click traps. In Mozilla build 2001091403 (the nightly trunk build released right after the 0.9.4 milestone), context menus don't appear until you lift the right mouse button. Your point?

Re:Context menus

[agdv]

Well said, but I'd also like to point out that this feature (right click on button release) is also how the Windows Explorer(at least my win98 box) works too. I'd say most Windows users are used to it. And the ones that don't use Windows are power users anyhow, right? :-)

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes more than a 1.2 gig athlon with 256 meg fo ram to run Window 2k?

I ask becuase i know that's the minimum hardware mozilla needs to not be slow as fuck.

Oh wait windows 2k needs a 486.

I dare ya to run mozilla on a 486, bwahahha.

Mozilla is pretty cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I really like Mozilla. I don't like Microsoft, so I don't like IE. Netscape 4.7 is OK. I don't like Opera -- it has many bugs too. Konqueror is too "KDE" -- it's not for everyone, just KDE folks. Lynx won't display graphics at all. So that is why I like Mozilla.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you used IE4 or something, everyone agrees that version is shit.

Try IE6.

I try every release of mozilla, and they always suck.

Why GPL *and* LGPL?

[jmv]

Last time I read the LGPL, there was a clause that said that you are free to relicense LGPL stuff as GPL. Explicitly saying it's both LGPL and GPL seems redundant, right? Or am I missing something?

From the LGPL text:

You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices.

Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy.

Re:Why GPL *and* LGPL?

[Gerv]

It involves replacing all the license headers, which is a pain, and makes it harder to give your changes back if you do it. It's easier to incorporate the GPL into the original language.

Gerv

Re:Why GPL *and* LGPL?

[aozilla]

I would think you can license MPL as LGPL as well, since using it as a library would necessarily involve creating new files... Of course, I think the slashdot article is wrong (what a rare occurance), and that the triple license is NPL/GPL/LGPL, not MPL/GPL/LGPL...

Re:Why GPL *and* LGPL?

[Gerv]

Exactly what the triple license is depends on what the original license was. NPLed files are staying NPLed for the moment.

Gerv

Re:Why GPL *and* LGPL?

[pheede]

Read the FAQ linked from the article:

Why didn't you use an MPL/LGPL dual license? Doesn't the LGPL allow use under GPL terms as well?
Using an MPL/LGPL dual license would have caused unnecessary inconvenience for people wishing to distribute Mozilla code under GPL terms, by requiring them in some cases to change the license notices on Mozilla source files. An MPL/GPL/LGPL triple license reduces the potential inconvenience.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[BitwizeGHC]

Mozilla is more corrent, more stable, and faster than Konqueror and Opera. The constant whining of the KDE sycophant class cannot change this fundamental fact. Mozilla is designed to render HTML and XML documents, and to expose the DOM API to programs, according to W3C specifications. Konqueror is designed to increase the zeal of its sycophants. Both projects appear to be successful.

I am not sure if your statements re: Konqueror are accurate. I think that Konq exists mainly to provide an exact counterpart to Internet Explorer for KDE: an "integrated-with-the-desktop" Web browser.

I do not agree with this idea. More importantly I do not want to subject my desktop to the kinds of bloat that KDE and GNOME represent. Hence my reasons for not using Konq and for using Mozilla; if I were a KDE user I'd give it a go.

Out of curiousity..

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean if I want to break the rules of one license, I can choose another license in which that rule does not apply?

I know you're a Troll, but...

[matty]

Open Konqueror and point it at espn.com and you'll see that it doesn't render properly at all. Mozilla has rendered this just fine since 0.9.1 (Flash & Real plugins included).

Now, go to your Hotmail account. Notice how there's no "Add/Edit Attachments" button? It's there in Mozilla. This is also true of IMP, which I run on my mailserver. You can click to add an attachment under IMP, but when you browse to the file, highlight it and click OK, it says "You must choose a file to attach".

Don't get me wrong, Konqueror is a nice browser and improving all the time, but for general browsing (under Linux anyway), Mozilla is the best overall at rendering and handling pages properly.

Re:I know you're a Troll, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...or, you go to http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/lite/index and see it just fine, just without all the...err..flash.

Re:I know you're a Troll, but...

[matty]

It certainly does load faster without the Flash, but the point is that the main page doesn't render properly under Konqueror.

Re:I know you're a Troll, but...

[err666]

As for well-known browsers not rendering "correctly" (whatever that is) do this: Use Internet Explorer 6 to view Sourceforge. Everything's centered! Ugh. Prior versions worked ok.

Re:I know you're a Troll, but...

[halk]

ESPN.com has broken browser identification script. It renders ok in konqueror if you set the user agent to masquerade as MSIE. Go and whine to the webmaster.

Re:I know you're a Troll, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The better solution is to convince people
to use standards. You know there are standards
for html,css,dom , etc. As long as especially
iexplorer, but also netscape/mozilla provide
many 'extensions', web authors tend to use them
---> bad thing.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[BitwizeGHC]

Moz runs quite acceptably on my 266MHz laptop.

Your troll nature has been revealed for what it is. You lose.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[reynaert]

I suggest you fix your computer, because it's obviously broken. Even my Celeron 500 with 64Mb of RAM isn't that slow.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[hammock]

Once started, it's just as fast as any other browser (it still starts slowish, but it's way better than it used to be.)

In Windows, you can configure Mozilla to load itself in the background when Windows boots up, just like Internet Explorer.

Now that Mozilla uses the same cheat to lower startup times, which browser starts faster?
Answer: Mozilla.

Which browser renders pages faster?
Answer: Mozilla

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

After the recent readme.eml debacle, I switched all our computers here at work over to Mozilla. They range anywhere from a P200/128mb up to 1ghz Athlon/512mb. No one has complained about speed.

Also, please paste the link that says W2K runs on a 486. Given the way it runs on a P300/256mb here at work, I'm quite sure it would be absolutely unusable even if it did install.

*sigh* Sorry, you're just a luser Troll, and not even a good one.

buh bye............

Re:BSD license == corporate welfare

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL license certainly hasn't prevented my employer from incorporating GPLed source code into their closed source product. He he he. You lose.

Re:Another user to add to my moderation hit list :

[grepnyc]

Whoever you are, I think that you need to take a reality check. Like anyone would care that you're going to mod them down. Please.

Do I believe that you have an automated mod down script? No. Do I care? Not particularly.

I don't care about Karma anyway. I'm just here to read posts made by really, really smart people and maybe learn a thing or two.

pressure/grep

Re: online banking (was:To Gerv)

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used Opera 5.11, with all the cookie settings set wide open (SIGH...) to access Wells Fargo online banking.

Opera didn't used to work there, I complained. I don't know if it was my complaint, but shortly thereafter, I was able to access via Opera.

more?

[Xiphoid Process]

Netscape 6 has the best support for CSS of any commercial browser (only Mozilla, the open version of Netscape, has fewer bugs)

Re:more?

[slamb]

The first page I ignored...I never pay much attention to testimonials unless they're from someone overwhelmingly authoritative (in this case, basically only the W3C) and even then with some skepticism.

The second page was more interesting. It said very convincingly that Netscape 6's and Mozilla's CSS1 support are better than IE 5.0 or 5.5's. The bug count was significantly lower and the bugs seemed less severe. I looked at their 5.5 bug sheets and did see the problems they mentioned (using IE5.5, not 6.0).

However, this still doesn't prove your original statement because:

• Those pages don't mention IE6. I deliberately chose IE6 for comparison because it is so new that how it does compared to Mozilla is unprovable at this point; it hasn't been out for long enough for anyone to have done a thorough job testing it. I'm not trying to convince anyone with that statement (I have no clue if it is true or not) but playing devil's advocate, trying to get people to question the doctrine that Mozilla is the best.
• Konqueror isn't mentioned either. Not sure why this is; it's been out long enough to have been tested. I've heard its CSS support is good as well. Some people claim it is better than Mozilla's, though they haven't justified their statements either.
• CSS isn't the only standard Mozilla and IE both claim to support. XML comes to mind, for example.

Of course, I haven't disproven your statement either. I don't have to. When you claim things as fact, the burden of proof is yours. Believing everything anyone says would be dumb, and it would take far too much time to attempt to prove/disprove every statement someone offers.

Re:more?

[unapersson]

If IE6 is so much more standards complient than Mozilla then why can't it handle this standards complient page properly?

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspira l/demo.html

Re:more?

[unapersson]

And here's another one for you, which displays some unfortunate IE6 quirks. Again, the page works fine in Netscape 6/Mozilla.

Re:more?

[the_2nd_coming]

wel, if IE6 handels XML like the rest or MicroSoft's Software, then it is not standard at all. Given the history of this case I would bet my money on NOT standard.

Re:more?

[Xiphoid Process]

You make some valid points, the burden of proof is on me.

The fact is that Mozilla is the most widely accepted standards leader, many people have tested available browswer and come to this conclusion (i just posted the first two my quick search came up with before i left work yesterday). I'm sure IE6 is an improvement on ie 5.x. I understand that it is based off of the rendering engine which was used in ie 5.x on the mac, which came a close second to Mozilla in terms of standards compliance. I'm not sure actually how much, if at all, ie6 is an improvment over that... but the reality is that Mozilla is the most standards compliant browers that we know of at this time.

In time, we may here that ie6 is ahead of ns6 ... but please bear in mind that Mozilla has come MILES since netscape 6, which is what got most reviewing. I honestly think that they are pretty even right now, but seeing as it has been microsoft's long history to embrace and extend in a proprietary fashion, the burden of proof is really on MS to unseat Mozilla.

As for Konquoror, its rendering engine is terrific, but I usually don't rate it as highly because of stability issues that I have had with it... I'm not sure if that has been because of shoddy sys-admining on my part or what, but Mozilla definitely feels more solid to me. I would love to see a thourough, unbiased shootout between Konqueror, Moz, ie6 and Opera... let me know if you see any.

Re:more?

[slamb]

I would love to see a thourough, unbiased shootout between Konqueror, Moz, ie6 and Opera... let me know if you see any.

Will do, and I'll keep my eyes open.

Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a multi-million dollar marketing blitz to get people to switch from that free browser to this free browser. Banners, billboards, posters, superbowl commercials!!!!!!

We'll figure out how to recoup the money later, first thing's first! Onward, into battle! Yee-ha!

Yes, your company is smart to consider PFL software (profit-free license).

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

There are three possible explanations for a comment like yours:

1) You are stone blind.
2) You are so deeply zealoted that the standard rules of physics no longer apply.
3) You are flatly lying.

IE blows the doors off Mozilla in both areas you mentioned and any other report is patently false.

*COUGH*

[zCyl]

7 choices. You can't release it under no license. 2^3 - 1.

Re:*COUGH*

[Anonymous Coward]

(The empty set is a choice because both the BSD and the MPL allow distributing just binaries.)

Uhm, you missed this bit about binaries.

Re:*COUGH*

[vrt3]

Don't you still need a license, even if you only distribute binaries?

Re:*COUGH*

[Erik Hensema]

Everything copyrighted (and that's about everything anybody writes) can't be distributed unless the author gives permission to do so. This permission is called a license. In the license the author sets the conditions under which the work may be used, distributed, sold, etc.

Only work donated to the public domain may be distributed without a license.

another Konqueror fanatic?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time I opened up my home page with Konqueror I laughed so hard. It looked like Konqueror just gave up and randomly drew stuff onto the screen. And this is supposed to be better than Mozilla? Try a few CSS-2 tricks with fixed positioning and see for yourself.

And does IE6 finally support fixed positioning yet?

Nice!

[Zarniwoop]

So can we finally include mozilla source in our own projects?

If so, this makes things so much easier for all of us doing mozilla-based projects -- now, instead of saying "works with this nightly, get the devel headers from wherever you can find them, may not work with others" we can just package it all up in one. Ooooh, sweetness...

I think I'll go have a drink to celebrate!

what's what

[archen]

won't be long before we'll need how-to's just to explain the licences, and a moz-licence.bugzilla.org just to track them.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[blkros]

Opera: Not free
The adware version is.
Netscape 4.x: Not free, and buggy as hell
Well, yes it is free. I will admit, though, it is quite buggy.

I prefer Opera. It's fast, you can have as many windows as you want open, and switch between them quickly. Good multitasking. I also find the interface easier to use than Netscape.
Konquerer is good but it can't render some web pages.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[baptiste]

Which browser renders pages faster?
Answer: Mozilla

Amen! I could not BELIEVE how fast 0.9.4 rendered pages. I've got the latest IE 6 and I thought the latency was network related - my friend - an MS freak, thought I was kidding when I told him Mozilla was rendering pages MUCH faster than IE 6 - he took control (Pent III 700MHz w/ 512MB RAM), browsed like crazy and had to admit it was true! Congrats to the Mozilla performance team!

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Any browser that doesn't cache previous pages will need to reload them and forms will be empty. Though Mozilla caches by default - were you changing the cache settings?

I loved what Opera did - it saves open windows so if there's a crash it can resume. How about the same ability to store form comments? (ie, autosave every minute, and upon submit)

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - there are a number of bugzilla records abot that. Mozilla is horribly slow at opening new windows. They're working on it.

If you're sick of waiting and still want Mozilla try MultiZilla, it's much faster than IE at everything (well - beginning ftp is a bit screwy).

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Anonymous Coward]

All i know is pages are rendered instantaneously in IE, in mozilla they are not.

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the only IS person, and all of our computers have the very latest patches applied to all versions of IE. There was a test .eml file in the original discussion (I forget the link, look it up yourself) that was auto-opened by IE 5.0sp2 and IE5.5sp2, whereas Netscape 4.77 and Mozilla0.9.4 simply ignored the file as if it weren't there.

Copyleft Copyright collision

[deranged unix nut]

My problem is that as an employee of a software development company, any accidental of copyleft code into our copyright codebase would mean that our copyright is null and void.

When Mozilla copylefts SAMPLE code, the only way to avoid the risk to corporate intellectual property is to use cleanroom reverse engineering procedures.

This is quite expensive. Just use a BSD compatible license and you do the entire world a favor. If you want commercial software developers to be able to read and help you improve your code, give us a license that dosen't kill our employers.

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they want you to "give back" by releasing your sample code-based application. After all, didn't you benefit from having that sample code there in the first place?

Heh heh... GPL freaks crack me up.

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[Grond]

"When Mozilla copylefts SAMPLE code, the only way to avoid the risk to corporate intellectual property is to use cleanroom reverse engineering procedures.

This is quite expensive. Just use a BSD compatible license and you do the entire world a favor. If you want commercial software developers to be able to read and help you improve your code, give us a license that dosen't kill our employers."

Look, if Microsoft wants to stea^H^H^H^Huse Mozilla code in IE 7 or whatever, you can just come out and say it.

(Note: this is sarcastic)

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[deranged unix nut]

I know you are being sarcastic, but I am serious, the copyleft community is shooting themselves in the left foot by applying thier restrictive licenses to sample code.

Note, the emphesis was on *SAMPLE*. The code for the main app can be under whatever license you want, but how do you expect commercial software developers to write a commerical plugin for your copyleft app if we have do a cleanroom reverse engineering project just to see the sample code?

If I was a software company, I wouldn't even contemplate making a single mozilla plugin due to the licensing related intellectual property costs.

Given that the sample code is GPL, if a plugin writer used that sample code as the base of his plugin, he could at a later date be forced to GPL the entire plugin that he hopes to make money selling. As a result, I would wager a bet that at least half of the closed source plugins for mozilla are violating the GPL license of the sample code.

In that context, Microsoft is right, GPL is parasitic.

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[psyclone]

sorry, but who is honestly trying to _sell_ a browser plugin? especially for mozilla? ever since netscape, ie, and countless others have been 'free' to use, selling software components for the browser have failed. I *suppose* people bought RealPlayer platinum or whatever, but my University didn't and I'm guessing most people didn't and probably never will.

now for giving away proprietary plugins that your company does not want to open, I agree, the sample code should be a BSD-style license. But in the future, I really don't see proprietary third-party products being used. For example, people will use windows media because it's shipped with the os, so they'll buy the software to encode in winmedia. Real will be less used and supported so fewer will want to purchase it -- especially if there are open source alternatives.

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[Dwonis]

SAMPLE code should be in the public domain, IMHO. That clears up any and all licensing problems you could ever have.

Re:Copyleft Copyright collision

[tempest303]

My problem is that as an employee of a software development company, any accidental of copyleft code into our copyright codebase would mean that our copyright is null and void.

Wow, way to spread a little FUD lovin around. No, it wouldn't invalidate your copyrights, you'd just have to remove the offending code from your works.

When Mozilla copylefts SAMPLE code, the only way to avoid the risk to corporate intellectual property is to use cleanroom reverse engineering procedures.

This is quite expensive. Just use a BSD compatible license and you do the entire world a favor. If you want commercial software developers to be able to read and help you improve your code, give us a license that dosen't kill our employers.

Awww.... you're pissy because it would be "quite expensive" to use someone else's work? Either write the stuff yourself, or quit complaining. Commercial development CAN HAPPEN with GPL'd code, and *especially* with LGPL'd code, so quitcherbitchen; be happy it's Free at all!

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

And this makes mozilla less bloated, buggy and beta how?

Re:dont you know freedom=anarchy and anarchy is ch

[Chris Y Taylor]

Yes, that is stuipid. They should just lower the taxes on aviation fuel (that they raised when airlines started making a lot of money back in the 80s but foolishly forget to use some of that profit as congressional campaign contributions).

Managing contributions

[Glenn R-P]

What happens when someone takes their GPL copy and makes a bugfix or an enhancement? Does that force a code fork, or is there a mechanism to get the contribution into the other-licensed versions?

Re:Why can't the GPL just go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't lawyers go away ...

Another License?

[truefluke]

... at this rate, pretty soon they're going to have to change their namesake to "Hydra".

It could be worse

[Len]

The sample code that comes with Microsoft Visual C++ is "Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved". How does your employer feel about that?

Re:It could be worse

[deranged unix nut]

Well, at least with the Microsoft license, I can attempt to negotiate to include their code in an application. ;)

If that fails, then it is back to the cleanroom reverse engineering problem. I guess only BSD has the right idea for sample code. :)

Re:It could be worse

[Everybody]

Well, that's not quite the case. My copy of Visual C++ states:

"REDISTRIBUTABLE COMPONENTS. Microsoft grants you a non-exclusive royalty-free right to use and modify the source code version of those portions of the SOFTWARE which are identified in the documentation as the Sample Code("SAMPLE CODE") and the Microsoft Foundation Classes ("MFC"). You may not distribute the SAMPLE CODE or MFC, or any modified version of the SAMPLE CODE or MFC, in the source code form."

=> you may do with the sample code what you wish, but you are not allowed to distribute the source code. Sounds reasonable to me (from MICROS~1's perspective)

blaming the FSF

[vu13]

I think it's funny they blame the FSF for claiming the two liceneses are incompatible when it was Mozilla who first stated this and intentionally made an incompatable license. I guess the FSF makes an easy scape goat these days.

Old Mozilla

Under our reading of the GPL, it will not be possible to incorporate code covered by the GPL into the Communicator source code base. It is also not possible to use GPLed code and NPLed code together in a Larger Work. This is different for LGPL code. It is possible to create a larger work using LGPLed code that can then be used in conjunction with NPLed code through an API.

New Mozilla

After the NPL and MPL were created, the Free Software Foundation stated that the NPL and MPL were "incompatible" with the GPL. "Incompatibility" in this context means that (in the opinion of the FSF) developers who combined code licensed under the NPL (or MPL) with code licensed under the GPL and distributed the resulting work could not do such distribution without violating the terms of the GPL. Given that the LGPL contains similar language to the GPL, if the MPL were in fact incompatible in this way with the GPL, it would arguably be incompatible with the LGPL as well.

mpl

[mattdm]

That's nice and all, but have you read the MPL?
(Section 3.7, for example.)

Re:mpl

[Dwonis]

I don't follow:

3.7. Larger Works. You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered Code with other code not governed by the terms of this License and distribute the Larger Work as a single product. In such a case, You must make sure the requirements of this License are fulfilled for the Covered Code.

Re:mpl

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm Section 3.7...

"Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the excersise bicycle in the women's gym will be dicharged without trial"

Im sorry but i dont see the significance of that rule here?

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually had the pleasure of running Windows 2000 on a Pentium 133. It was fine -- well, no worse than NT4 anyway, and IE 5.0 was maybe a little snappier.

No way in hell would I run Mozilla on that box.

Re:Another user to add to my moderation hit list :

[Anonymous Coward]

See, I tol' yoo yoo din' haf no steenkeen krahn djahb.

Next..........

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[Pulzar]

It doesn't make it more of a technical success just because it's the best of the free, platform-indepent browsers. If Mozilla can't compete with non-free browsers, it's not a technical success.

Linux can claim/argue to be the best OS, free or not, so that's why it can be called a success.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[SurfsUp]

Mozilla is more corrent, more stable, and faster than Konqueror and Opera.

More stable that Opera maybe but not as fast. I use both Mozilla and Opera on my laptop, mostly Opera because of the speed. I go to Mozilla when some page doesn't work. Mozilla is pretty fast at rendering (Gecko) but still, Opera is faster in many case. There's no question that Mozilla's UI is slow, though much faster than it used to be.

On my 2x1 GHz/2 GB machine I only use Mozilla.

Some facts from the FAQ

[nels_tomlinson]

Taken from the Mozilla relicensing FAQ.

How will the new Mozilla license scheme affect developers who want to use Mozilla code in creating and distributing proprietary applications?

Not at all; developers creating and distributing proprietary software incorporating Mozilla code will be able to continue to use that code under MPL or NPL terms and conditions, exactly as they have been doing all along.

They tell us that you can still use the code under the NPL, just as always. See the FAQ for some details; talk to your lawyer for legal advice.

The important point here is that Netscape thinks that you can indeed use their code to make proprietary applications. If your lawyer tells you that you can't, you should have him communicate his reasons to Netscape. I'm sure that they would appreciate the feedback.

I think that Netscape is being a good deal more generous than I would be with my code. As always, if you don't like the license, don't use the code, and don't release your code under a license you don't like.

Getting off topic now: By the way, for the folks who point to a BSD license as a cure-all, I have a question: is it true that BSD licensed code may be re-released under the GPL, just as it may be re-released under a closed-source license?

Re:Some facts from the FAQ

[Pseudonym]

is it true that BSD licensed code may be re-released under the GPL, just as it may be re-released under a closed-source license?

Code released under a licence stays under that licence unless the copyright holder changes it. If you hand someone else the source unmodified, the BSD licence must remain attached, so they get the same rights you did. (Of course, you don't have to hand them the source. That's not re-releasing under a closed-source licence, it's not releasing the source.)

The main thing, though, is that if you have code under a BSD licence (sans advertising clause) you can incorporate that code in a larger work which can then be released as a whole under the GPL. This is what we mean by "GPL compatible": your changes can be released under the GPL.

Problem non-existant

[benb]

> When Mozilla copylefts SAMPLE code

But it didn't. the code is still available under the MPL. The GPL is only an *option*. Please read the MPL 1.1. Thanks.

Re:Problem non-existant

[benb]

> still available under the MPL

...or NPL.

Like MS and his BSD Network stack?

[Saib0t]

You call that to (quote)help you improve your code(unquote)?
Not going to start a war BSD vs GPL all over again, but it seems fair to me that if you want to use the work others have done, you contribute. BSD license does not provide that IMNSHO.

Re:Like MS and his BSD Network stack?

[jesser]

Not going to start a war BSD vs GPL all over again, but it seems fair to me that if you want to use the work others have done, you contribute. BSD license does not provide that IMNSHO.

The BSD license doesn't require that anyone building on your code to contribute to the common source pool to the extent that the GPL does, but it doesn't prevent contribution either. In fact, BSD-like licenses encourage some kinds of contributions: contributions from companies that want to release a version of the product with closed-source addons. (For Netscape, those addons include AIM and a spell checker.)

Resources...

[Stentapp]

Maybe Mozilla render HTML and XML better than Konqueror, I don't know.

But also have in mind the number of developers contributing to Mozilla vs. Konqueror. And certainly the number of PAID developers on Mozilla vs. Konqueror...And how much venture capital is burried down in Mozilla vs. Konqueror?

Just questions...

There is. Was:Thar's gonna be trouble!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to eat turds.
Richard M Stallman, 1998

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[hereticmessiah]

Konq is a decent browser, but it has awful problems with tables from my experience. Example: it doesn't deal with the colspan, rowspan, and width attributes properly. I can give an example page to demonstrate it if anybody wants (send me an email).

your sig

[jesser]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.

Never underestimate the total energy of a fully-fueled 757 moving at top speed.

Re:Mozilla Project Success; Mozilla Browser Failur

[GreyPoopon]

I could not BELIEVE how fast 0.9.4 rendered pages.

I thought it was just my imagination, or improved network throughput here at work. But it sounds like the performance improvements I noticed on 0.9.4 were real. I still think there are some serious improvements to be gained on the network side of things (vs the rendering), but 0.9.4 is definitely perceptibly faster than 0.9.3.

IE Usage amongst geeks

[jawtheshark]

Next time when such thing happens, you will have a chance to see IE has a huge majority on Slashdot too.

Well, this *could* have a logical explanation. Some geeks probably are like me: they read slashdot at work and at work IE is company policy. No choice possible.

My whole surfing needs (and those of my family) are covered with Netscape, but that is at home... I visit slashdot at home, but not as much as at work. So, from a statistical point of view I'll contribute to the IE part, but from a "choice" viewpoint I'm all Netscape.

Agreed on the "joe user" part: they use IE exclusively....but that's not out of choice, that's because "it comes with the computer".

I'm not a browser fanatic, not at all, and on my Linux machines I prefer Konqueror anyway.

Don't forget Galeon!

[TheRevenant]

Galeon (a good streamlined GTK+-based browser that uses the mozilla engine) is becoming increasingly popular too...

Why both LGPL/GPL?

[romanski]

If I understand LGPL, it is possible to relicence it (== use the code in) GPL, but not the other way arround. So why not just to use MPL/LGPL and simplify the situation?

Re:Why both LGPL/GPL?

[gorgon]

So why not just to use MPL/LGPL and simplify the situation?

Read the FAQ, Why didn't you use an MPL/LGPL dual license? Doesn't the LGPL allow use under GPL terms as well?

Re:Mozilla Buggy is Myth

[Stephen Chadfield]

Mozilla is much slower than Opera on my Sun Ultra 1. I don't expect that it will ever run at an acceptable speed on this hardware.

By the time this machine gets upgraded I imagine I will be so accustomed to using Opera that I won't give Mozilla a second thought.

At home on my K6-2/400 (Debian Potato) Opera is also much faster than Mozilla and the latest Technology Preview is a much more stable platform for Shockwave and Java plugins.

Hold on a sec...

[Millennium]

I'm no expert, but does this solve the licensing issues with libart?

If it does, that could mean native SVG support by 1.0 (the current implementation has licensing issues because of libart, if I am not mistaken). That would be a great thing for Mozilla.

Re:Hold on a sec...

[Zigg]

My guess is no.

The relicensing is really a one-way gift. Contrast "Hi, I know you are a GPL zealot or want to use code written by same; with this licensing scheme you can also use Mozilla code in your software." with "Hi, I am a GPL zealot and as a result, you cannot use any of my code in anything licensed with anything other than the GPL."

The bottom line is that the triple-licensed Mozilla code, when linked with GPL-licensed code, effectively becomes GPL-licensed, but GPL-licensed code cannot find its way into Mozilla unless Mozilla stops using the [MN]PL entirely.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Hold on a sec...

[Gerv]

> The relicensing is really a one-way gift.

Only if people are nasty enough not to triple-license their changes. mozilla.org hopes that there are very few people out there ungrateful enough to take and use a chunk of our code and then deny us the right to the fixes they make.

The upside is that more members of the free software community can use our stuff, and will hopefully contribute to the project.

Gerv

Re:Hold on a sec...

[Gerv]

I'm not sure what the libart license is, but mozilla.org will not accept LGPL and GPL-only code into its tree, because it can't be used by all members of our community.

Gerv

Re:Hold on a sec...

[Zigg]

You're right, of course. The point I'm trying to make, though, is that in order for software to become part of a GPL'd project, it must itself become GPL'd in one form or another. In the case of Moz code, the [MN]PL and LGPL are shed when it is linked with GPL-only code.

I'm right behind your hopes, and I think you'll find that most reasonable people are too.

MPL is a copyleft...

[Per Abrahamsen]

... or at least the article said so.

Someone in the mozilla.license group explained it this way:

1. GPL coplefts an application.
2. LGPL copylefts a library.
3. MPL copylefts a file.

The distinction is merely how far the copyleft aspect of the licenses reached

because...

[funky womble]

Obviously, there's only two other licenses worth even thinking about.

First, free BSD-type licenses. Obviously using a completely free license like BSD would scare people off (see, look how everybody has stopped using Apache these days because it isn't GPL?).

And obviously, the huge number of developers makes the normal version of the second worthwhile license a little difficult to work with. I mean, how on earth are you meant to send beer to that many people? Fortunately, there is an alternative.

Probably the best license in the world.

Re:mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe if you had read the article, you would've seen that this is about MOZILLA? hell, you could've just looked at the little icon.