Mozilla To Be Dual Licensed - MPL/GPL 204
thegrommit writes "No doubt I'm one amongst many, but Mozilla is going to be
dual licensing their codebase" Actually, thegrommit was the first, but it's great news. Congratulations to all involved - I've been using Mozilla a huge amount over the last three months, and it's pretty amazing. You can check out the FAQ for more details.
Check out the latest one (Score:2)
Atta Boys 'n' Girls (Score:5)
Upon completion of the relicensing, I'll award the Mozilla folk an official Atta Boy. More await the release of a version usable by my father.
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:1)
It's harder for me to imagine having a philosophical problem with the GPL, but thinking the MPL was fine (unless you are Netscape/AOL, but even they seem to have come around, so why worry?)
Was it necessarily a good idea to make this move now?
Sun wanted Star Office integrated into GNOME, so they are GPL'ing it. Netscape wants to encourage reuse of Mozilla (such as integration into GNOME), so they are GPL'ing it. (Maybe the GPL is "viral" after all. Yesss!!)
Re:IE? (Score:1)
Sorry, I made the assumption that beta products didn't count because if they did then there might be even better web browsers that we don't know about because they're in the early stages. If Mozilla is as fast as IE, as stable as IE, and more standards compliant than IE, then the only thing that will keep people from switching is laziness.
Re:Trying to Salvage a Failed Project? (Score:1)
Hear me now, believe me later, Mozilla is a failed project. It's not a useful browser, that is if you do more then read slashdot. Yow want to click on a link on shoutcast and have xmms load? You want Java? You want a browser that doesn't take up more memory then Homer does food at the all you can eat buffet? Then don't use Mozilla. Not now, not ever.
Rather strong claims. I wonder how you are going to know how the Mozilla will develop (or not to develop) in the future. (Aren't the helper applications already working?) As far as Java support goes, please find the relevant entry in Bugzilla for the current situation.
This isn't flamebait. It really isn't. But to say that Mozilla is useful for anything besides light browsing for more then 15 minutes at a time(before it segfaults) is just wishful thinking and sour grapes at IE5.
This is rather strong claim too. Lately I've used mozilla almost exclusively in the work. It crashes about two or three times during the day. If you think that I'm just a rambling Mozilla advocate, please search for the older Mozilla-related articles; I complained myself about the poor stability. However, this area has improved very nicely in the last few months.
Re:Trying to Salvage a Failed Project? (Score:2)
Sorry, laddie; I understand your rant, but you're out of date. Mozilla may have fragile, slow, greedy; it isn't greatly so any more (yes, it's still greedier than I like). M16 was about as stable as (but much more standards-compliant than) Netscape 4.6. M17 is the best browser I've used on a UN*X platform bar none. In a week's hard use it has crashed once, so it isn't perfect. On the standards side it's up there with IE5; the stability still needs a little bit of work, but not very much.
Mozilla may have been a 'failed project'; it isn't any more.
Why didn't you just use the GPL? (Score:1)
"There are a number of reasons for this. The first three points speak to the necessity for the NPL, and the fourth addresses the question of why we didn't just release the code under the NPL and the GPL.
4. Netscape is interested in encouraging the use and development of the Communicator source code by other commercial developers. Netscape was concerned that these other companies would hesitate to engage in this development if the code were regulated by a license as strict as the GPL, requiring that all related software also be released as free source. At the very least, every other commercial developer would have to look very closely at the legal ramifications of embarking on free source development. This initial hurdle alone might be enough to keep them from starting at all, so it was decided to remove the hurdle by using a somewhat less restrictive license."
I've always thought that was a bullshit response, and now we see that they could have done it all along, and just chose not to.
"the company is not able to consider...the GPL" (Score:2)
"16. Why don't you just release the source under both the NPL and the GPL right from the start?
The NPL and GPL are incompatible, as we explain in the question about using code covered by the GPL with code covered by the NPL. If we were to take this tack, we would cause an immediate and irreparable split in development on the Mozilla code base. This split would greatly minimize the benefit that Netscape would see from free source development, and because of this, the company is not able to consider releasing its code under the GPL."
Re:AOL Impact (Score:2)
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Re:IE? (Score:1)
If you have a CSS element defined for elements, and you don't close them- Netscape wont render it with the proper CSS element
Re:AOL Impact (Score:1)
NO
Aol still owns the codebase. By releasing a copy of the source under GPL, they are letting others play with it. But all of the stuff AOL generated, and perhaps all the stuff submitted under MPL, are owned by AOL and they can do anything they want. The GPL just says we can't close the stuff we play with --- the original author is not so bound.
Re:Windows works for you... you're lucky! (Score:1)
About how windoze sucks... last night I installed a removable drive bay, and put the IDE drive into my machine. My computer has no other IDE devices, the disk and cdrom are both SCSI. Windows pops up a blue screen saying that it's going to have to switch to "compatibility mode", only because I just installed an IDE disk drive! Compatibility mode means everything is running 16 bit drivers, as I understand it. Well, the next couple boots both crashed, for no apparant reason. I finally did get it to boot, opened a DOS window and ran FDISK and FORMAT on the new drive. Somewhere near the end of FORMAT, the machine completely crashed, with some sort of message about the system being "halted" for some reason. I did finally get the drive formated by creating a "startup disk", booting the computer with that. Under this config, the drive letters were reversed from their appearance in windows... another thing that isn't a problem in linux. Fortunately I noticed the drive sizes before formatting "D:" and losing my existing windows installation.
Even after I removed the IDE drive and attached it to my hardware, Windows is really messed up. It's still in compability mode, and how to fix that is a good questions.... at least not without using linux.
In the last year or so, I've been using Linux to make backups of my windows partition. I have another machine that runs linux 24/7 and exports some shares with samba. I always save my work to "F:", so "C:" only has the system, software, and other non-data files. Many windows programs always default to saving stuff on "C:", often in their own installation directories, which seems like a bad idea to me, but it's only a minor annoyance compared to windows crashing.
Anyways, to back up my windows partition, I type something along the lines of:
cat /dev/sda3 | bzip2 -9 - > /tmp/sda3_windoze_backup.bz2
and then later on, when windows gets itself all messed up in a state which is more or less not recoverable, I just "cat" that image file back onto the /dev/sda3, and just like magic windows is back in a previously working state, completely reinstalled, and with only one reboot.
Actually, before I do the backup, I type "cat /dev/zero > /dos/dummy.bin" to fill the unused space with zeros, and then delete the file, so that the backup image will compress well.
I'm glad that you don't have any problems with Windows, and I wish my experience was the same. Right now, my windows partition is really messed up, and I need to find the CDR that I burned that big .bz2 backup file onto.
At the risk of getting moderated down for blantent self promotion, here's a link to my little MP3 player project [pjrc.com], which is the reason I needed to temporarily add an IDE drive to my machine, and why Windows went south.
Re:Troll Alert (Score:2)
Assuming you were serious (as opposed to Sport-Thwacking :-) )...
The most casual observer of the Open Source community will note the philosphical split between the GPL and BSD camps. There are many people who contribute Open Source work under the BSD license because they disagree with the GPL's compulsory source redistribution requirements. GPL-ers likewise have issues with BSD's terms.
Mozilla is a sufficiently large project that it's easy to envision project members having diverging points of view on this issue. My hope is that, to the extent such disagreements exist, this change in licensing won't adversely impact the development of Mozilla.
Schwab
Re:IE? (Score:1)
As SamBeckett said, you're wrong. The following code will render fine in IE, but not in Netscape:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>
Netscape won't display this.
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Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:1)
Re:Because they want something back. (Score:1)
IOW, they want to keep some sort of proprietary control over the code?
UGH! (Score:1)
Re:This will be a big boon for the Galeon project. (Score:3)
As it turns out, RMS himself helped us out and determined that we indeed would need to add a clause to the Galeon license for allowing us to link to the MPLed code. Without it, Helix Code and Debian probably wouldn't be able to distribute Galeon (for similar reasons why Debian doesn't include KDE). This kinda sucked, so we do plan to add the clause which will fix everything.
However, once this change occurs, we will no longer need it -- it will definitely make things more simple, though. We probably have Chris Blizzard to thank for this (in part).
As a new converted Galeon user.... (Score:5)
I must admit that I find myself browsing with Galeon more than I do with Mozilla these days. The simple and clean interface design out-weigh the 'Heavy' and feature full interface of Moz.
The biggest problem with Galeon is the steps involved in getting it to work. (They couldn't distribute the Mozilla compontents).
Using Galeon I get far fewer crashes (and Galeon is still in Alpha) than w/Mozilla or Netscape. It is MUCH faster than Mozilla and is close to being up to speed with Netscape with application zippiness. (GTK is fast!)
Give it a look, I believe that they are moving quicker than the Konquerer group because they are leveraging a rendering engine that WORKS.
Too bad that Opera never really happened. What a great little browser. Hehehee... long live open source.
--------------------
Re:IE? (Score:1)
Technically, an XML parser shouldn't parse anything until the entire document has been read. This may be infeasable for web browsers.
Mabie the browsers should pop up a dialog like the following when they encounter non-conformant HTML:
Re:IE? (Score:2)
anyway, in case anyone wants a more authoritative source for "Mozilla is the best at standards compliance", http://www.richinstyle.com/bugs/table.ht ml [richinstyle.com] is the place to go.
Re:Confused (Score:2)
At least that's the way I understand it.
Re:Trying to Salvage a Failed Project? (Score:1)
If someone knows anything about Mozilla, they must know about Gecko, so I can agree that my statement there was a little unnecessary.
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Re:Trying to Salvage a Failed Project? (Score:1)
IE? (Score:3)
================
Re:Sounds good. (Score:1)
Re:Thing #3 (Score:1)
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:1)
Re:As a new converted Galeon user.... (Score:2)
Getting Galeon to work will improve in the future. There are plans to package a "embed" package of Mozilla that includes just the gtk widget and required files. Early versions are already appearing in the nightly directories on the Mozilla ftp site. The package is much smaller, and works fine.
GREAT news for the GPL (Score:1)
I'm not sure I understand (Score:1)
1. It's late
2. It's becoming more irrelevent due to IE's desktop monolopy on Win desktops.
3. It takes 5 years to launch it (altough I suspect that is a result of being debug compiled)
It may initiate others (read GPL purists) to take gecko and build other browsers, but even then I'm not sure if its that big of deal. Don't both Gnome and KDE ship with their own browsers? In a desktop situation, a tech support person doesn't want to install or configure any app that can't be easily restored and will usually go with what app is the most prominent one, which may or may not be Mozilla or Gecko. Technological improvement takes second to ease of restoring. This is why IE is used by default. It's easier to restored, it's part of the OS/GUI enviroment.
Re:IE? (Score:1)
-- browsers.
Except for the fact that it has an 85% marketshare... who cares if solaris is the only unix flavor to back it? Do your mom and dad use unix, does aunt patty use unix, your girlfriend? (if your answer to the above are yes --expecially the girlfriend one-- then I am sorry about your luck).
-mr gerbik
Re:What was the problem? (Score:1)
The answer to both questions is, as usual, the GPL.
OT: Question about mozilla (Score:1)
yay! (Score:1)
Re:3 licenses == meaningless licensing (Score:2)
Yes, you're right; thanks for pointing that out.
IMHO, triple licensing is needlessly complex, and renders all 3 licenses essentially meaningless.
However, it certainly doesn't render them meaningless. I still can't take the Mozilla source code, make my own modifications, and distribute a compiled binary without providing the source. AOL can (and will), but nobody else.
--
I thought... (Score:1)
This is good news, though. I think.
sulli
Re:Dual-license your code in 21 days! (Score:1)
make xmozconfig (Score:1)
$ make xmozconfig
or just edit the config.h
you could use the big unwieldy mozilla that comes with your distro -- you know the one with eveything compiled in or recompile with just the parts you want
CONFIG_MAILER=N
CONFIG_NEWSREADER=N
CONFIG_ASTEROIDS=N
CONFIG_USER_TYPE=hacker
can you do that yet??
one day RSN, I guess...
Lach
Re:IE? (Score:1)
Standards compliance (or as close as one can get with the current state of standards) takes one a long way toward 'running well on IE' without short-changing other WWW clients [browsers]. The VAST majority of pages are designed with at least some consideration of these standards in mind, though most frequently as they pertain to graphical clients (as opposed to character-cell clients such as Lynx or aural 'readers').
There is very little that one can do to ensure that web documents 'run well' under IE as opposed to a competing graphical browser (such as Netscape or Opera) as most tasks are bound by the rendering engine(s) built into the various clients. Most performance considerations that are within the control of web designers/implementors (document weight, code/object re-use, image compression, etc.) more or less apply just as well to client X as they do to IE.
The best that can be said for design tailored to IE is that one can achieve results unavailable to competing clients (either because IE is a closer approximation to existing standards than its competitors or because it offers proprietary extensions to the standards) or the results can be prototyped and handled for IE more efficiently by developers than for competing clients (case in point being IFRAME v. LAYER madness). Only in cases where IE offers greater standards compliance and/or a competitor's compliance is buggy (as in offered, but not reliably) can one really argue for a performance advantage to IE.
Only in cases where these additional capabilities are actually required can one argue for a benefit in slanting his or her code to favor IE. Given that general purpose web design forces one to always consider legacy clients (let alone AOL), IE wizardry is best saved for intranets and not the Internet. Although, I've read the opinions of many Slashdotters that suggest that even this level of reliance on Microsoft (rather than a standards body) to dictate the terms of web development to be mistaken.
But at what cost? I guess I see the state of affairs as being one where non-IE clients are unable to deliver the goods feature-wise or make half-assed attempts to do so. Rather than slant coding in favor of IE it is far more profitable in the long-run to push for more and better from its competitors. The glass is half full, not half empty. IE is not better, its competitors are worse.
I honestly believe that if competitors made serious efforts to release clients capable of carrying off the latest standards most of the advantage that rests with IE would be lost from a development perspective with the added benefit of putting some backbone into those very standards. Whether or not end users adopt these fictive uber-broswers will depend on availability, reliability, utility, and performance.
Of course, it is most likely quite delusional on my part to believe this, as the sheer ubiquity of IE at this stage in the game pretty much guarantees that a serious contender will have to offer something very special (read: proprietary) in order for end users to notice.
Of course this is just an off-topic rant, so I am most likely wrong.
galeon, etc (Score:2)
So far, I feel that I'm going to get the most value out of mozilla's parts, rather than the mozilla browser/communicator type thing that they're making.
AB Fab!! (Score:3)
Now with GNOME/Nautilus/Star Office/Mozilla all rolled into the GNOME foundation Linux is going to start making some desktop headlines. Not to mention what Star Office/Mozilla could do for Windows.
Joseph Elwell.
Confused (Score:2)
So how would that work, exactly? You abide by the terms of the liscense chosen when you get it, or are they somehow going to try and abide by both simultaneously?
-TBHiX-
Some people think I'm crazy, but the voices tell me not to pay attention to them.
What is MPL? (Score:1)
Dual-license your code in 21 days! (Score:5)
First, you can imagine that a dually-licensed source file is really two files: one that has the GPL at the top, and the other than has the MPL at the top. When you use the file -- distribute it, compile it into a binary and distribute that, combine it with other code -- you can choose which of those ``virtual files'' you're dealing with. So if you want to use nsMozFile.cpp with your GNOME app, you might choose to use it under the GPL. But when Netscape builds Netscape 6 from nsMozFile.cpp, they'll probably choose to mean the requirements of the MPL instead of the GPL.
I'll restate that, because it's traditionally the sticking point: a dually-licensed file lets you choose which license you will honour. You have to meet the requirements of one of the licenses, at least, so mixing and matching requirements is obviously out. (Obviously. I'm embarrassed to even mention it.) You do not have to meet all the requirements of both licenses, and in fact it's impossible to do that, because the GPL forbids additional restrictions, and the MPL has several requirements that would fall under that category.
So what about changes? Well, now you've got three choices: you can create a derivative that is GPL-only, or a derivative that is MPL-only, or -- perhaps better still -- a derivative that is also dually-licensed. mozilla.org would certainly prefer that people keep things dually-licensed, for the same reasons that we want to dually-license it in the first place: it serves a larger community of contributors and consumers. Now, we can't require that your derivative be dually-licensed; that would violate the terms of both licenses, I suspect, but certainly the GPL. So all mozilla.org can do is exert control over its infrastructure, and insist that contributions which go into the cvs.mozilla.org tree be dually-licensed. It's still well within anyone's legal rights to create a GPL-only derivative of Mozilla, and fork the world. I think that would suck, a lot, and even RMS has in the past discouraged people from doing that. If nothing else, it would discourage other organizations from going the dual licensing route.
I hope that helps some. I'm really psyched about this; it's been a dream of mine (and others') since before Mozilla was even released, and the success of dually-licensing the JavaScript [mozilla.org], NSPR [mozilla.org] and NSS [mozilla.org]/PSM [mozilla.org] code whet my appetite for more. Please join us in the mozilla-license [mailto] forum for more discussion.
The Greeks knew it two millenia ago... (Score:3)
I know this may be a confusing concept for you to cope with, but you see, as the Earth rotates around its axis, the part of it which is illuminated by the Sun changes constantly. So when it's the middle of the night where you are, in many other places it's the middle of the day, and a lot of people there are reading Slashdot. By the time those people are sound asleep in the middle of the night, you'll be studying or at lunch or posting to Slashdot or something; when you're doing this, remember: the time of day varies depending on where you are.
I know that understanding it fully is too much to ask from you, but please give it a try so that, even if you do remain stupid, at least you won't sound like you are anymore.
And your point is? (Score:1)
IE may have a majority in browsers, but that's irrelevant. Windows has a majority in desktop installations, and the two are directly related So?
Re:IE? (Score:2)
Second, as to displaying poorly-written HTML 'correctly', I think that statement has no real meaning. A browser should not correct for people's fuckups that deviate from the standard. This deviation is what got us into the entire mess of browser incompatibilities in the first place. Lauding IE for deviance is not admirable.
Finally, you state that IE is widely supported. That's hardly true; IE doesn't run on any unix except Solaris (and I have heard varying reports regarding the quality of the Solaris implementation.) Netscape runs on any platform IE runs on, and then some. Mozilla is slated to do the same; and lynx most likely has all the browsers beat. In short, IE is among the least-supported browsers. It only really runs well on Win32 and Mac (And ironically, better on the Mac too.)
Re:Because they want something back. (Score:1)
This is incorrect. The MPL allows code to be combined with code under other licenses, including proprietary licenses. Netscape is using this provision to create a Mozilla-based product (Netscape 6) that includes proprietary functionality; however any other company could do the same thing if they wished. There are no "special privileges" for Netscape in the Mozilla Public License (as there were in the original Netscape Public License, from which the MPL was derived).
No to "no" (Score:1)
No, no, no. The Mozilla Public License provides no special privileges to Netscape. You are thinking of the Netscape Public License (NPL), which does contain such provisions. The MPL was created specifically to have a Mozilla license that was generic and did not give Netscape special treatment.
Also note that as part of the effort to do dual licensing, the intent is to eliminate use of the NPL with Mozilla code; any code currently licensed under the NPL should end up dual licensed under the _MPL_ and GPL.
Think FrontPig and Wurd (Score:1)
Re:Why didn't you just use the GPL? (Score:1)
Close... (Score:2)
Close, but not quite: They want to keep some sort of non-proprietary control over the code. IOW, they want everyone to have equal control over the code.
The BSDL is optimized for code-reuse, regardless of how the code is reused. The GPL is optimized for making sure the code is always available to anyone who wants it, regardless of what has been done to it. A subtle but important difference that many people miss.
Who moderated this crap up? (Score:2)
This is nonsense from beginning to end!
Umm no. This won't do anything about the bloat, the fact that Netscape is owned by AOL, or the feature creep... just the license incompatibility.
So who's forking it Einstein? Where do you get this assumption of a fork? It's not a fork, it's a dual-license.
Oh, you want a fork, eh? Fine, you write it. Somehow I suspect your boss wouldn't appreciate you taking time off from your real job, of posting incredibly bad ideas on slashdot, to write a competitor to his browser, whatever the license.
Go away, troll.
This makes sense (Score:2)
That is quite sensible given that the code has been changing quite rapidly, and forking it at this stage would be a bit of a nightmare. Once the codebase stabilizes a bit, changing to the GPL is probably a wise thing to do; it will allow more customization of the app, without bothering the developers with every little change that is made.
Opera Dead? Don't think so.......... (Score:2)
I've tried Opera for Linux, and despite it's alpha stage, it runs faster and better than Netscape ever has. When it catches up to the windows version, it will most certainly be worth the price.
Check it out at: Opera for Linux [operasoftware.com]
Curious about FAQ 1.5 (Score:2)
The staff at mozilla.org is chartered with stewardship of the mozilla codebase. To that end, mozilla source must be brought to as large an audience of developers as possible; mozilla.org seeks to eliminate as many obstacles for contribution and reuse of the code as possible.
If they want everyone to be able to reuse the code, why don't they just BSD the whole thing? This would allow "as large an audience of developers as possible" to contribute to the code.
Complaints about IE. (Score:2)
IE may well be good at getting dodgy html to render but it seems they aren't too good at getting what are (presumably, I've never had need to look at them) well defined standards/protocols to work properly. From a server admin point of view the fact that IE chokes on such things is a bit of a pain in the arse. Of course, the end result isn't Microsoft looking bad as the general public will just assume that the server is borked......
Slashdot sidebar *HERE* (Score:2)
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:2)
That the GPL made this mistake is understandable. It was created at a time when free software was being invented, and it was unclear whether there would be reasons for important non-GPL free-software projects. Now we know that many free-software projects, corporations and other organizations prefer to release code under free-software licenses tailored to their needs. I think the GPL needs to be changed to permit linking with software under any free-software license as long as the entire derived work is under free software licenses (no using other licenses as "shields" to get GPLed code into a proprietary application). Expressing this requirement is a license is difficult, and that is why I didn't want to see this dual-licensing. Mozilla is one of the most prominent non-GPL codebases and provided an important incentive to solve the problem: getting GPLed software to "play with" other free software without letting it "play with" proprietary software. "Keeping free software free" is an important goal of the GPL, but it is not the only goal of the GPL, and the GPL should be changed to acknowledge that.
I think that the free software community is weakened because the GPL is actively hostile to non-GPL approaches to free software. I think this discourages experimentation with free-software development and business models and therefore makes it harder for free software to compete with proprietary software. While some of this cost is visible (licensing flamewars, for example) I think the vast majority of it is invisible. How do you count projects not started, and experiments that were never made? Many people here think Galeon is a great project. Would it have been created sooner if the GPL didn't discourage working with non-GPL free software? I think one of the strengths of the free-software community is how easy it is for developers across the world to cooperate with each other. We should be working on enhancing this strength, not standing by and letting the GPL dilute it.
Re:IE? (Score:2)
no, it's currently Mozilla that does the best job of standards compliance, on a count-the-points basis. IE is a relatively close second, but Mozilla does *that* better. now, of course, IE is a whole lot more stable than Mozilla. then again, Mozilla isn't even quite beta yet.
Re:Close... (Score:2)
The MPL and GPL are not equivalent. The most important difference is that the MPL explicitly permits MPLed code (e.g., Mozilla code) to be combined with code under other licenses, including (implicitly) proprietary licenses.
On the other hand, the GPL explicitly mandates that if code licensed under the GPL is combined with other code not under the GPL, then GPL terms and conditions must be complied with for the resulting derived work. This effectively prevents creating and distributing works combining GPLed code and code under proprietary licenses.
The MPL/GPL dual licensing scheme is intended to maximize the number of developers who can use Mozilla code in their own applications; the goal is to allow them to use the Mozilla code under MPL terms and conditions or under GPL terms and conditions, whichever is appropriate given the license terms being used on the developers' own code.
Re:So how will it work? (Score:2)
Re:And your point is? (Score:2)
Mozilla is currently more compliant with the spec than IE, but it's still pre-release quality. There are a few things that it doesn't do yet, but rest assured they will come along soon - the power of open source is immense.
Thus, your comment about Mozilla clueing in about DHTML is pretty much incorrect - Mozilla is consistently shown to have the most compliant implementation available - even in pre-release form.
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:2)
I'm used every milestone release since M10 or so, and I have found them to be mostly stable. I suspect that I have experienced something like 20 crashes with Mozilla since M10 - that's a tiny number for pre-release software. What's more, the number of crashes I have experienced since M14 or so is a tiny fraction of that - perhaps 3 or 4?
Obviously, YMMV, but for me, Mozilla is already more stable that NN4, and really really close to IE stability - all this in pre-release software!
Re:info on the MPL, NPL, and comments (Score:2)
Steal the Crown Jewels (Score:4)
It'll be Free. It'll be linkable and reusable. All the extra crap can be stripped out. It'll be a wonderful day.
But the next day might be bleak indeed, and this is where your acid test might fail.
The MPL fork will remain the most cohesive, especially if the GPL releases lag behind the MPL. No one will maintain it as a full fledged project on its own (like the Linux Kernel is). It'll be more like GhostScript - the latest and greatest will cost you (cash), the next best is free (beer) - only in Mozilla's case it's costing freedom.
In order to make it a true acid test (and really, in order to save Mozilla from complete crapitude, my opinion), it has to completely break away from Netscape and then pick up a new, powerful maintainer (a Benevolent Dictator).
In any case, when it comes time to submit a patch, submit it under the GPL, even if that means it won't make it into the Netscape-maintained codebase.
In other words... We oughta take the crown jewels and run like hell. Maybe leave behind a thank you card.
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:2)
sigh
Okay, so even though the focus of my concern was that the relicensing might delay Mozilla, people decided instead to focus on my comment concerning M14's stability. The consensus in this thread is that I should Get With The Program, download the latest Mozilla, and give it a spin before criticizing.
Okay, fair enough. I make no excuses. However, if the gallery will admit an explanation: I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my desktop system from Slackware 3.4 to something using libc6. I wasn't looking forward to it, as it meant a full wipe and re-install. Fortunately, I have an ORB drive, so I was able to snapshot the entire system before wiping it. In the process, I've decided to become a lazy schnook and, rather than upgrade to Slackware 7.0, chose to go with Debian 2.2 (potato).
So there I am, confronted with dselect's list of a bazillion packages, and on a whim decide to install Mozilla. I search, find an entry, and the description says it's version M14. "Hrm, that sounds a bit old," I think to myself, "but it should be good enough to play with..."
After a quick peek, I see that M17 is in Debian's 'unstable' tree. Since y'all have recommended it so highly, I'll snarf it tonight and give it a try.
Schwab
P.S: Wish me luck; I get to repeat this entire upgrade process for my Slackware-based laptop.
Re:As a new converted Galeon user.... (Score:3)
my experience is that Galeon isn't quite ready for heavy use yet, but Mozilla pretty damn near is. I've been using M17 quite a bit for the last week, and I haven't had a single crash yet. The odd page that won't load, form entry field that grows and shrinks by a pixel randomly (pushing the rest of the page up and down.. real funny effect!), some UI oddities, sure, but it has basically rendered everything I've thrown at it, and done a good job of it. Once you get past the half-a-second redraw sluggishness, it's already much better than Netscape 4.7x.
Galeon, OTOH, still has some very basic functionality missing: you can't scroll up and down with the arrow keys, space and backspace; "see source" isn't there, forms have some problems, right-button menus aren't there yet, downloads don't work, much is missing from the preferences menu, etc etc.
it also has some very good points: the interface loads *fast* (faster than NS4.7, and much much faster than mozilla), what works, works pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Galeon surpassed Mozilla in usability, and got all the features it needs, pretty soon. But for the moment I can't say it's usable for day-to-day browsing yet, and Mozilla is.
Re:Dual-license your code in 21 days! (Score:2)
Re:Horray! (Score:2)
Re:Yes and No, GPL protects new developers (Score:2)
Troll Alert (Score:5)
Yeah, I was trying out Windows 2.0 a little while back. Boy did it ever suck. Nobody would ever use that. Ack, and did you see that Linux 0.8 kernel? That'll never get anywhere either.
It's easy to envision there will be some individuals who are philosophically opposed to the GPL, and will refuse consent on that basis.
A bunch of volunteers working on an open source project with deep philosophical problems with GPL. Are you from Redmond?
This could potentially lead to a very messy code split
Kids, don't try taking logical leaps like this at home. Obviously this person is a professional and has taken the proper safety precautions to avoid falling into a mental abyss.
Other than that, good post.
AOL Impact (Score:2)
Mind you, I have zero concern for the well being of AOL or their software. Thing is, if AOL is going to want to build into Mozilla these proprietary components, aren't we looking at GPL conflicts all over the place? How far can they take this and still please both the company funding them and the community keeping them going? As earlier posts have suggested already, there's a LOT of details that need explained before this has any real weight.
Re:yay! (Score:2)
You could say the votes of 51% of developers (Or the developers of 51% of the code) could change the licence, but what's to stop someone coming in and adding large amounts of code just to take over control of the project.
A real troll, a rarity for /. (Score:2)
It's been so long that the spammers have been calling themselves trolls that what a real troll is has been forgotten. So good job recognizing a real troll, but you forgot one thing: What to do about it. Remember, you don't respond to trolls, you don't argue with them, you just say *THWACK* and move on.
Have a nice day. ^_^
Yes and No, GPL protects new developers (Score:2)
GNU GPL section 10 (Score:2)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Asshole (Score:2)
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Re:galeon, etc (Score:2)
Most importantly, it will better prevent duplicated efforts to have a GPLed rendering component in the future. And yes, this would have become an issue sooner or later.
Re:Troll Alert (Score:2)
Don't you mean, "are you from #freebsd?"
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Re:GPL takeover (Score:2)
Nothing at all, AFAIK.
The only reasons I can think of for preferring something complicated like the MPL over the known GPL are `marketroid' and good ol' idiocy.
~Tim
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Re:Confused (Score:3)
This will be a big boon for the Galeon project... (Score:5)
Currently they cannot distribute the gtkembmoz.h file, due to licensing restrictions, which is needed for compiling the source code.
Through Galeon, this will also directally effect the GNOME project. Giving it a simple browser utilizing the Gecko rendering engine. We will, with evolution/nautilus(SP?) have seperate apps for browsing, e-mail, and file/system management! Along with the upcomming GPL of Star Office, GNOME is on the move to providing a complete productivity environment without the bloat!
Re:IE? (Score:2)
IE currently does the best job of standards compliance, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better. Any rational IE developer must wish that the W3C [w3.org] didn't exist so that Microsoft could create new standards without interference. Instead, Microsoft or someone else comes up with something new, and the final recommendation can be changed from the beta. This is a pain for both Microsoft developers because they have to go back and change their work, and for other developers because people might be making work that doesn't appear broken during testing (but is broken on more compliant browsers).
Think of Mozilla as the reference drivers like video cards have: you can use it if you want it exactly the way the W3C intended. If standards-compliance was the market dominance, people wouldn't commit to beta standards until they had been subjected to peer review.
If you're a web developer, you don't have to worry about testing on different browsers. If it works in Mozilla, then its not your problem if it doesn't work somewhere else.
Great news for Galeon and others (Score:2)
forking vs merging forks (Score:2)
A better solution would have been to create a "MPL 2.0" that says "you may relicense this code under the GPL 2.0 or higher." Assuming the MPL has one of those sneaky "or later a version of this license" clauses.
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:2)
I found Mozilla to be a high quality implementation of a web browser - that's why I liked it.
They're probably working on one right now. (Score:2)
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:IE? (Score:2)
"Be generous in what you accept and strict in what you produce", right?
Re:Licensing (Score:2)
Re:IE? (Score:2)
It doesn't make sense - what happens if the browser displays the page progressively as it's being downloaded, and towards the end, some closing tag is missing (whether because of bad html, a connection problem, etc)? Should the browser erase everything it's rendered so far and say "Oops, sorry, but we can't let you view this page"?
Because they want something back. (Score:3)
If they want everyone to be able to reuse the code, why don't they just BSD the whole thing?
Because they want the rights back for any changes to the codebase. With copyleft licenses such as MPL and GPL, mozilla.org gets rights to use the changes, which could remain a company's "precious [8m.com] trade secret" under non-copyleft licensing.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Trying to Salvage a Failed Project? (Score:3)
This is just a way for a failed project to salvage itself. By hoping that someone else(because they haven't been able to) will be able to make a browser that's 1/4 of what even Netscpae 4 is, let alone IE5.
The only way people will use any part of Mozilla, is if it's parts of other programs. Be it AOL software, Natualius, or whatever.
This isn't flamebait. It really isn't. But to say that Mozilla is useful for anything besides light browsing for more then 15 minutes at a time(before it segfaults) is just wishful thinking and sour grapes at IE5.
I really hope this last ditch effort saves something from the Mozilla project. Maybe other people other then Netscape/AOL employees will start to work on it and finally release something I'm not embarased to say is an open source project.
Good luck Mozilla....you're going to need it.
Re:Dual-license your code in 21 days! (Score:2)
I, personally, think it makes more sense, precisely because of the fact that MPL/GPL code + LGPL library = GPL library -- which isn't really what anyone would want to have happen.
Re:GPL Libraries (Score:2)
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:3)
1. The recent builds are MUCH better than just a few weeks ago, much less M14. It really is starting to shape up nicely.
2. I beleive the MPL allows Netscape (and only Netscape) to release the code under their own licence. If there own licence happens to be the GPL then that's their right.
Poorly written HTML (Score:2)
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Re:IE? (Score:2)
Re:My Immediate Concerns (Score:2)
Point the second, RE "whatever that means": I didn't know either, so I used a search engine.
- Here's RMS's take on MPL [gnu.org].
- An alternate view [orbs.com].
- And a nice list of license types [gnu.org] from gnu.org [gnu.org]
Point the third: your post was as nearly content-free as possible. Do a little brain work next time.