Yeh. usual amiga attitude. Do the bare minimum when it comes to sourcecode releases. The attitude sucks.
The creator(s) of any software have sole ownership of their project, and it is absolutely their choice whether they decide to release their work as open or closed source.
I'm getting the impression that you're one of those people who believe that software writers have an obligation to release their work on an open source licence and that to do it any other way is somehow incorrect, unfair and unacceptable. Would this be a fair summary of your feelings? You're not alone. Lots of people seem to think this way. Software development is the only sector that appears to attract this attitude, for some reason.
The reality is that there's no correct or incorrect way to licence software. The developers take a decision about how they want to do it based upon the situation that suits them the best. They're the ones who have spent significant amounts of their time on the project (time being the most valuable asset of all) and, as such, it is absolutely their prerogative.
Personally, I can't for the life of me understand why a user feels he has the right to critisise the decision, as it has nothing to do with him. Unless he's spent his own precious time on the project (or perhaps financed it in another way, but time is the most precious investment of all), then really he has no say in it at all! This is absolutely fair.
I don't currently work on any Amiga related projects, but I do undertake some software and hardware development on other projects and I have a tendancy to release my work on an open source licence because that's what generally suits me the best. But they are
my projects and, on a project by project basis, it's absolutely
my decision to make. Nobody else has a say in it, and I don't feel that anyone else is in a position to take me to task on it. Anyone who doesn't like my decision, is free to invest their own time on their own project and then the decision will be
theirs instead.
And, at the end of the day, we should really think ourselves lucky (as users) that someone has invested their own personal time to bring the Firefox project to fruition. Let's be honest, it didn't look as if anyone else was going to do it.
AH