Netscape Public License
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Fate | Acquired by AOL |
| Parent | AOL |
The Netscape Public License (NPL) is a free software license under which Netscape Communications Corporation initially distributed Mozilla.
A distinctive aspect of this license is that it grants Netscape (currently a subsidiary of AOL) the authority to distribute changes made by other contributors under any conditions, including proprietary terms, without offering reciprocal rights to those contributors. This provision allowed the later versions of Netscape, starting from version 6, to be released as proprietary software.
This one-sided nature has faced criticism from both the open source and free software communities. While the Free Software Foundation classifies it as a free-software license, it recommends against its adoption, whereas the Open Source Initiative either rejected or did not evaluate it. Additionally, the FSF highlights that the NPL is incompatible with the GPL.
The Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 1.1 shares similarities with the NPL, incorporating a restricted "file-level copyleft" but excludes the asymmetrical rights characteristic of the NPL. In response to the Mozilla Foundation and exercising its rights under the NPL, Time Warner reissued all Mozilla code under a tri-license consisting of MPL 1.1, GPL 2.0, and the LGPL 2.1, thereby addressing conflicts with the GPL.