At 20:29 05/02/2001 -0800, Daniel Veditz wrote:
>"Simon P. Lucy" wrote:
> >
> > I'd also like to point out that the Mozilla 1.1 Licence in the tree at the
> > moment includes this dual licencing language still and so contributors may
> > actually be dual licencing their work without their knowledge or
> > consent.
>
>I don't believe that's true. Section 13 (which states the *Initial
>Developer* can designate portions of their code as multiply licensed)
>doesn't say much that isn't already true under copyright law. Personally I
>don't think that section even needs to be in the license.
I think I probably overstated it, if only because the two Exhibit A
boilerplate texts don't specifically mention which alternative licence. I
don't think Section 13 belongs in either licence since it states the
obvious whilst at the same time giving the impression that a source may be
dual licenced when in fact it isn't. I object more to the Exhibit A
wording than anything, Section 13 on its own doesn't cause any real
ambiguity whereas the Exhibit A wording seems to pressure the Contributor
to dual licence.
>I suppose Section 13 serves to emphasize our belief that Modifications of a
>file are derived works of that file and thus still the copyright of the
>Initial Developer even though written by another. This is one way to solve
>the eternal open source question "how many lines of code does it take to
>make a patch ownable by the constributor?" I have no idea where the common
>wisdom of ten lines comes from and find it an extremely suspect. Our way is
>clearer (if it's really separate make it a new file), although you can
>construct equally ridicuous hypothetical examples around it.
I'm not sure it achieves that since it may allow use of another licence
that limits the Initial Developer's rights to derivatives. I really
dislike the modifier 'portions' on Covered Code it isn't defined anywhere
what a portion is and is only added in parenthesis elsewhere in the licence.
>["what if someone contributes a 3-line header file, and someone patches THAT
>FILE into a full-fledged word processor -- why should it still be owned by
>the author of the original header?" To which my answer would be the word
>processor author obviously intended to acknowledge the derivativeness of his
>code by shoe-horning it into such an inconvenient place rather than taking
>the simpler step of starting fresh in a new file.]
Yes if a Contribution really makes a significant difference to an original
piece of work then it will contain it rather than the other way around.
>I think the intention of the dual-licensing section (13) was that you could
>allow for dual-licensing when you create the file and add the appropriate
>Exhibit A, although as written it doesn't seem to limit when the Initial
>Developer could so designate. I hope this section is removed from future
>versions of the license: either it's restating the obvious that an author
>can choose licensing terms (and is thus unnecessary), or it's granting a
>power I'm not sure I'm comfortable with.
>
>-Dan Veditz
That I'd wholeheartedly agree with, as a first step though I'd like to see
the additional dual licence language removed from Exhibit A whether Section
13 is left in or not. Although whether there is any point to Section 13
after that is moot.
Simon
> Of course it may simply be that someone has decided that keeping
> > quiet about the licencing fiasco will just allow it to wither and it will
> > degenerate into a GPL licence anyway.
============================
We are not here to be nice to people.
S.P.L.
