At 19:27 25/12/2000 -0500, Glenn Alperin wrote:
>I've been following the Mozilla project almost since its inception, and I have
>followed it excitedly, though admittedly I am not a contributor to the
>project.
>That said, I did look over the FAQs available to see if my question was
>answered
>elsewhere, though I could not find an answer for it, thus this message.
>
>Having read the licenses available for various parts of the Netscape
>and Mozzila code base, and the other documents available which discuss the
>project
>and its licensing choices and selections, I am left with the impression that
>there are two different products in the works, one with the mozilla.org code
>base, and the other with the netscape.com code base. The mozilla web site
>indicates that some features will only be available on one browser or the
>other. First of all, did I read the available material correctly, and
>secondly (if I did read it correctly), will the code eventually be merged to
>support the features of both code bases (presumably under a Netscape
>commericial license of some sort in order to protect the intellectual
>property and contractual obligations and export restrictions as outlined
>in the
>FAQ for why various other licensing choices were rejected)?
Ummm no. If anything that is upside down, other than proprietary
extensions that Netscape, or another distributor, may make the primary code
base is mozilla.org. The licensing was split between Netscape Public
Licence and Mozilla Public Licence. The practical difference between them
was solely that Netscape was the original contributor in the case of the
NPL and someone else in the case of the MPL. The NPL licence release was
also made under the proviso that it would expire after two years and be
subsequently licenced under the MPL (in practical terms it hasn't happened).
There is no commercial licence of the source code on mozilla.org, there may
be subsequent commercial distributive licences made by third parties but
they should always allow the the same rights to the source. Proprietary
commercial additions whether by Netscape/AOL or anyone else remain theirs.
Simon
>Glenn Alperin
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
