From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jan 24 08:51:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA24549 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:51:20 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp11.portal.net.au [202.12.71.111]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA24539 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:51:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA00335; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 03:12:58 +1030 (CST) Message-Id: <199801241642.DAA00335@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Eivind Eklund cc: Christoph Toshok , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Free netscape - good or bad ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 24 Jan 1998 17:29:26 BST." <19980124172926.36408@follo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 03:12:58 +1030 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk > > I'm more than willing to beat up on netscape people who are leaning > > towards a more restrictive license than the GPL. If any of you have > > contact with such people from, let me know. I'll be on the look out > > for them as well. > > I think there are at least a few variations from the GPL that would be > a good thing here: > > (1) Anybody that distribute copies of something dervied from Netscape > should be required to give Netscape a copy on request (for free). > This makes sure Netscape don't have to pay or do extra work to get > features from something derived from Netscape. This is the CMU/Mach approach. It seems to work pretty well. > (2) Netscape should be allowed to distribute libraries for linking to > 3rd parties, without the 3rd party being required to distribute source > code (or object files for linking as in the LGPL). This should > include cases where people have contributed changes back to Netscape. > (This is to allow competition with the embedded IE4). I'm not sure I parse you here; you are suggesting that libnetscape.so should be subject to LGPL-style conditions? > I want a license that allow Netscape more rights than they would have > had with the GPL; it shouldn't place many more restrictions on 3rd > parties, but it should allow Netscape to do a lot more than a GPL with > back-contributed code normally does. If the legal people get it right, that would be ideal. Whether they're open to input is, of course, anyone's guess. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\