free software has as much to do with free speech as it does with free beer, that is, nothing. Those two phrases are simply used to illustrate two different meanings of the word "free" in English in order to emphasize the FSF doesn't mean "no cost" as in free beer.
The only connection to free speech is that they use the same sense of the word "free". Software is not the same as speech so no need to drag in all the emotional baggage of the rest of that phrase.
In fact RMS (and others) made just this objection to pre-release versions of the Netscape Public License that effectively required ALL changes be made available to Netscape.
Based on this feedback the final version of the NPL was changed to a "source follows distribution" model like other free licenses.
Far more than 30 people outside Netscape have contributed small fixes and such. The 30 figure refers to major submissions and active on-going development.
"Bugzilla" is not a snide name for Mozilla, it is the name of the but reporting tool created for the Mozilla project. Bugzilla is open source and RH happens to be using it.
I don't think anyone at *Netscape* is saying the license doesn't matter. There has been a lot of code we can't use (GPL), and a lot of people we'd like to collaborate with who can't use our code (again, GPL issues).
Those are two separate issues. Netscape will never be able to incorporate GPL code because of crypto restrictions. Our lawyers have agreed to let us take baby steps toward fixing the second problem by dual-licensing the JavaScript engine. If it works out well we may be allowed to dual-license more of the code eventually.
(Keep in mind that it has taken a year to get this far, and that we now have a new set of lawyers to deal with.)
Most open source licenses do not allow people to change the license itself -- otherwise no one could ever be sure exactly what "GPL" or whatever meant.
If you want to change the terms invent your own license. But better, don't: just use one of the existing ones.
With JavaScript under pure NPL various GPL'd project for which it might prove useful could not use it. (I happen to think that's the GPL's own fault but that's a different flame war.)
Now GPL projects *can* use the engine. With JavaScript in wider use it will also get wider scrutiny and thus more bugfixes and enhancements.
It is possible that those fixes and enhancements could be released GPL only in which case Mozilla.org could not use them. That would be pretty selfish considering GPL is supposed to be about sharing code. It also might discourage the Netscape lawyers from allowing other parts of Mozilla to be dual licensed.
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free software has as much to do with free speech as it does with free beer, that is, nothing. Those two phrases are simply used to illustrate two different meanings of the word "free" in English in order to emphasize the FSF doesn't mean "no cost" as in free beer.
The only connection to free speech is that they use the same sense of the word "free". Software is not the same as speech so no need to drag in all the emotional baggage of the rest of that phrase.
In fact RMS (and others) made just this objection to pre-release versions of the Netscape Public License that effectively required ALL changes be made available to Netscape.
Based on this feedback the final version of the NPL was changed to a "source follows distribution" model like other free licenses.
(and 30 is probably someone's wild-assed guess at that).
Far more than 30 people outside Netscape have contributed small fixes and such. The 30 figure refers to major submissions and active on-going development.
"Bugzilla" is not a snide name for Mozilla, it is the name of the but reporting tool created for the Mozilla project. Bugzilla is open source and RH happens to be using it.
I don't think anyone at *Netscape* is saying the license doesn't matter. There has been a lot of code we can't use (GPL), and a lot of people we'd like to collaborate with who can't use our code (again, GPL issues).
Those are two separate issues. Netscape will never be able to incorporate GPL code because of crypto restrictions. Our lawyers have agreed to let us take baby steps toward fixing the second problem by dual-licensing the JavaScript engine. If it works out well we may be allowed to dual-license more of the code eventually.
(Keep in mind that it has taken a year to get this far, and that we now have a new set of lawyers to deal with.)
Most open source licenses do not allow people to change the license itself -- otherwise no one could ever be sure exactly what "GPL" or whatever meant.
If you want to change the terms invent your own license. But better, don't: just use one of the existing ones.
With JavaScript under pure NPL various GPL'd project for which it might prove useful could not use it. (I happen to think that's the GPL's own fault but that's a different flame war.)
Now GPL projects *can* use the engine. With JavaScript in wider use it will also get wider scrutiny and thus more bugfixes and enhancements.
It is possible that those fixes and enhancements could be released GPL only in which case Mozilla.org could not use them. That would be pretty selfish considering GPL is supposed to be about sharing code. It also might discourage the Netscape lawyers from allowing other parts of Mozilla to be dual licensed.