console.log() called on object other than console

Question

I remember that always when I wanted to pass console.log as a callback parameter to some function, it didn't work unless I used the bind() method to bind console to it.

For example:

const callWithTest = callback => callback('test'); callWithTest(console.log); // That didn't use to work. callWithTest(console.log.bind(console)); // That worked (and works) fine. 

See Uncaught TypeError: Illegal invocation in javascript.

However, recently I noticed that console.log() works fine even when called on object other than console. For example:

console.log.call(null, 'test'); 

logs 'test'.

When and why did it change? Does the specification say anything about it?

Answer 1

Editor's Draft of Console API used to say:

Logging APIs SHOULD all be callable functions allowing them to be passed as arguments to error handling callbacks, forEach methods, etc.

This is no longer included in the current version of the specification.

I thought that Chrome and Node.js changed it to work like in the specification, but it seems that it worked like that even before it.

I'm still curious when did it change and what was the reason of that.