“How Does TLS Affect the Open Source Frontier?”

In response to my story about the transfer of TLS from Macrobyte to UserLand, Daniel Berlinger asks, Is there any impact on the open source release of Frontier?

My answer is, "probably not, but I don't really know."

UserLand didn't release Frontier as open source, Dave Winer did. My understanding (which may not be accurate) is that UserLand simply has a special license to sell Frontier as Manila. If they chose to contribute TLS to the open source project I'm sure they'd get a lot of thanks and appreciation, but by NOT doing that they have an advantage over the open source version to offer their paying clients.

Appreciation doesn't pay Jake's or Lawrence's salary, and UserLand is a new company struggling through it's first year of "startup."