stevel wrote: > My understanding of the GNU FAQ is that the NPAPI interface for > loading browser plugins qualifies as "dynamic linking" (it's certainly > more complex than just a fork()/exec() or an invocation of a `main`), > and that thus any use of a non-GPL-compatible browser plugin (such as > Adobe Flash) with a GPL'd XULRunner app (like Songbird) violates the > GPL. (Note that this isn't/shouldn't be an issue for MPL'd XULRunner > apps)
I am not a lawyer. The only advice I'm offering is quotations and personal interpretations of the licenses in question. You really really have to consult a lawyer. There are multiple questions here: 1) If you distribute the flash plugin under a proprietary license independently of (Songbird), does it have to be GPL licensed? Absolutely not. The Flash plugin was compiled against tri-licensed headers, not GPL headers. By itself it has no license taint. 2) Can an end-user install the flash plugin into Songbird? Certainly. The GPL doesn't limit what you can do with the GPL software. It only limits how you can redistribute it. So an end-user can install any plugin they want, as long as they don't redistribute it. 3) Can (Songbird) distribute Flash with their application (assuming they have a license from Adobe)? This is the tricky question. The relevant paragraphs of the GPLv2 are: *** These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. *** So... if you distribute (Songbird) on CD, and include the Flash installer on the CD, that should be ok. Flash is still an independent program aggregated on the install disc. What if you archive the flash installer and the Songbird installer in one archive (self-extracing .exe, mac DMG, or .tar.bz2? Is this archive a "volume of a storage or distribution medium"? I don't know. The license itself doesn't define the term. Or, what if you distribute XULRunner + Songbird under the MPL, and include the gstreamer installer as a separate application under the GPL? What if the (Songbird) installer installs the app, and then downloads and runs the Flash installer as a second step? I think this would avoid license taint, because it makes it clear that Flash is an independent program. > Is that the only difference? If we took XULRunner under the LGPL, > then it seems like an identical situation to the GStreamer issue, and > that we should be able to explicitly allow for the distribution of > Songbird under the GPL alongside non-GPL-compatible NPAPI plugins such > as Flash. Who is "we"? The Mozilla codebase is already licensed. You can choose to redistribute it under the MPL, the LGPL, or the GPL, but you cannot choose to redistribute it under the GPL + exceptions, because it isn't licensed that way, and relicensing it requires the consent of every contributor, which is... basically impossible. --BDS _______________________________________________ legal mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/legal
