Michael Beck (Team JEDI) wrote:
> "what would be my incentive to release any OOP code under
> MPL, if you could subclass anything from my source code and
> claim that this is your original work, and as such you don't
> have to release it as a modification? "
Given your view of the "derivative work" question, and your particular
goals, I don't recommend that you use the MPL, at least in its current
form; you may be more comfortable using the GPL instead.
I would add that there is at least one other possible view of the
"derivative work" question, and both views have their merits. To expand
on this topic:
Suppose that you write code for a class, and that someone creates a new
source file containing code that subclasses your existing class and adds
new methods, etc. In your view of the "derivative works" question (as it
appears to me), the code in this new source file is inherently dependent
on the code that you have already written, and in fact is so dependent
on that code that the other person's new code should be considered a
modification of your code.
And given that this new code should be considered a modification of your
code, and indeed in a sense could not even exist without your code, then
the author of this new code should be required to license their own code
under the exact same free and open terms under which you licensed your
own code.
In this way you guarantee that you (and others) receive the same benefit
from the new code that the author of that code received from your code.
This creates an environment in which all code is shared among all, with
"free riding" discouraged as much as possible.
As I said, this is a perfectly valid view of the world to have, and it's
basically the world view embodied in the GPL.
However I think it is also possible to have a different view of the
"derivative works" question. In this view, the author of the new source
file (with the code for the subclass) has created something new that did
not exist before, and could not necessarily have been predicted given
the code which already existed. (After all, the author could have added
new methods implementing entirely new and unique functionality,
functionality not present in any form whatsoever in the original class.)
In this view of the world, the code in the new source file wouldn't be
considered simply a modification of your existing code, unless the
author actually copied code text from your source files. Instead the new
source file would be considered a new work, a separate act of creation.
And as a new work, this new source file could potentially be licensed in
a different way than your original code was licensed, if the author of
the code chose to do so.
IMO this is a different but equally valid way to view the "derivative
work" question, and it is basically the view embodied in the MPL.
Note that when I say the two views are equally valid, I don't mean that
they'd both be seen as valid by any given person; any particular person
would probably prefer one view to the other. I simply mean that neither
view is inherently illogical or "unnatural".
In your case your views seem to be closer to those that motivated the
creation of the GPL, which is why I suggested that the GPL might be a
better license for what you want to do.
Frank--
Frank Hecker
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
