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On 21/09/2001 at 08:50 Ben Bucksch wrote: >Simon P. Lucy wrote: > >>Actually, having read the FAQ, even if I hadn't thought that Mozilla, for >me, was a dead project it certainly is now. Forcing developers to licence >their own work under the GPL simply means that developers such as myself >can never contribute back because of the risk of having our own future >unrelated development and client development affected. >> >Simon, I think you misunderstood the issue. I see 3 cases: > >People downloading the Mozilla source have the *option* to use your >contributed source code under the GPL. Nomally, the source is guarded by >MPL. Now, if (and only if) the opt to use the GPL instead, *they* are >forced to follow the GPL terms, which means that they have to release >the full source of all *their* binaries which link to Mozilla. In other >word, you get their source, while you aren't forced to do anything. No I don't get their source because I can't use GPL licenced source. > >If you contribute code to mozilla.org and at the same time use it (and >only it) in one of your products, you don't have to care about the >Mozilla license, because you have the copyright and you (in most >countries) have the right to license your work to any number of people >under any number of licenses. This is true. However, the problem arises when there are many contributors and at some time in the future the legitimate use of some piiece of code becomes disputed. Also if I have to licence using the GPL then I may be locked out of future derivations of my own work. A GPL forked version may add some feature. I cannot make use of that feature because I cannot use the GPL licenced file, I can't even replicate the feature because it could be seen as a violation of the GPL code. In fact I may not be able to make any significant enhancement of my own code because I would have to prove absolutely that my creation of the enhancement preceeded any GPL development. If that enhancement begins as closed source then the problem is that closed source code (including 3rd parties not party to the original licencing) is either effectively stopped from development or virused with the GPL. > >If you use Mozilla code (presumably with code contributed by people >other than you) in your app, you don't need to use the option of using >the GPL. You follow the MPL terms. The dual license explicitly says that >it's optional to use it under the MPL: ><quote src="http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html";> >Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of >the _____ license (the "[___] License"), in which case the provisions of >[______] License are applicable instead of those above. ></quote> >"Alternative", "instead". >If you opt to use the MPL and distribute the binary which includes >Mozilla code and proprietary code, your users don't get the Mozilla >portions of the binary under the Mozilla dual license, they get the >whole binary under the license terms you choose. The MPL allows that and >Netscape does it. All you have to do is to follow the MPL terms of >releasing the *source* to your Mozilla source modifications. There, we >are back at case 1, which, as we already saw, is no problem either. Here is the problem, there is no way to identify the use of the MPL licence at the time of use and that has been the core of my objection all the time and no one has addressed that. The distribution of binaries is not the problem because at that time the actual licence in use should be explicit. (Though I noticed that the Beonex run time licence includes the additional licence language which confuses me). The use of the MPL licence to build a particular distribution does _not_ preclude the use of either the GPL or LGPL licence either at that or any other time by the same person. In other words the licence used for a binary solely relates to the distribution and not the use of the source files. And the nub of the problem is that it is third parties that can make an assumption about how you make use of the source because there is no avoidance of doubt. Simon > >HTH. > >I am not a laywer. This is not legal advice. Feel free to add that to >the FAQ, if you want, assuming appropriate credit. > >Ben
