Daniel Veditz wrote:
>
> JTK wrote:
>
> > Frank Hecker wrote:
> >
> >>>The number of NPLed files is... rather higher than what I was
> >>> expecting.
> >>>
> >>Any source files originally created by Netscape employees are likely to
> >>be under the NPL, especially the older files, and there are a lot of
> >>such files.
> >
> > Indeed. Perhaps Netscape should be going through and removing these
> > licenses, at least changing them over to MPL+GPL, if in fact they really
> > want to encourage non-AOL contributions.
>
> The differences between the NPL and MPL are meaningless.
Ok, so will Mozilla.org accept patches removing the NPL and replacing it
with the MPL+GPL?
> The main right has
> expired, and the large fraction of the product under MPL and other licenses
> means Netscape doesn't have anything useful on which to exercise the NPL rights.
>
> The one extra right with any oomph is the ability to change the license on
> those files without having to get permission from all contributors. We were
> planning on taking advantage of that right to convert the files to MPL/GPL
> (thereby giving away that power) once the details were worked out.
>
Oh gee, an excuse, how did I not see that one coming. Pray tell, what
are these 'details' that need to be 'worked out'?
> Using the NPL (vs MPL) is not discouraging anyone,
It's discouraging me. Not that I'm real hot on the MPL either.
> and I doubt switching to
> MPL/GPL will encourage a lot more contributions.
Well you're probably right. Can't win, don't try.
> But by allowing GPL
> projects to embed Gecko more easily it will help our "browser-share" and
> indirectly may lead to bugfix patches.
>
GPLing or even LGPLing the whole works would directly lead to such
patches.
> -Dan Veditz
