Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:14:01 +1030 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: "Daniel O'Callaghan" <danny@panda.hilink.com.au> Cc: Adam Turoff <AdamT@smginc.com>, hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, "'sef@kithrup.com'" <sef@kithrup.com> Subject: Re: Mike Shaver: Netscape gives away source code for Communicator Message-ID: <199801230244.NAA00734@word.smith.net.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:32:39 %2B1100." <Pine.BSF.3.91.980123133010.29251E-100000@panda.hilink.com.au>
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> > On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Adam Turoff wrote: > > > > > Uh, no. According to the press announcement, the source is going out > > under the GPL. They get the rights to see any new feature someone > > comes up with and can't limit use of the source. Should be free to use > > with the *BSD/Linux/etc. CDs. More pertinently, even if commercial use is restricted, distribution is not. "Netscape is on the CD, but you can't use it for commercial purposes." Aha. Kind of like nobody uses the current "evaluation" binaries for commercial purposes. 8) > > How they're going to deal with that and make the value added versions > > worth paying for and not GPL'ed is going to be interesting. > > It is a promotional exercise. They get 10000 hackers brains making > Netscape's browser the best in the world, and so corporations will > naturally go to Netscape for web and proxy servers etc. There are some other interesting issues too; if redistribution of binaries built from modified source is legal, I would guess it'll take no more than a few weeks for a version with decent encryption to become available outside the USA. > What I like about this announcement is that it necessarily becomes legal > to carry a Netscape mirror site (I hope!) It certainly reads that way. I think I'll wait and read the fine print first though. -- \\ 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. \\
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