The additional language was added so that recipients who receive a file can be sure they can use it under either license. This may sound silly, but a lot of those who might use Mozilla, especially companies with due diligence and risk analysis requirements, look for an explicit statemnt about the scope of the license they are using.
mitchell Daniel Veditz wrote: > Gervase Markham wrote: > >>> >>> Note that there are at least two folks--Simon Lucy and myself--who >>> object to specifics in the current proposal for dual licensing >>> (though not the concept itself) on the same grounds that GPL zealots >>> dislike non-GPL licenses. It would allow people to turn the code >>> GPL-only and keep their improvements to Mozilla files unusable by >>> mozilla.org >> >> >> If you were planning the relicensing, how would you avoid this >> problem while still making the code usable in GPLed projects? > > > The proposed text includes > > Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms > of either of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later (the > "GPL"), or the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 or later > (the "LGPL"), in which case the provisions of the GPL or the LGPL are > applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your > version of this file only under the terms of either the GPL or the > LGPL, and not to allow others to use your version of this file under > the terms of the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the > provisions above and replace them with the notice and other provisions > required by the LGPL or the GPL. If you do not delete the provisions > above, a recipient may use your version of this file under the terms > of any one of the MPL, the GPL or the LGPL. > > We don't need anything more than the first sentence to grant > permission to use the file under GPL and LGPL terms. I'd delete > everything after "If you wish to allow..." What purpose does it serve? > > Note that the FSF is perfectly happy with the license used by Perl, a > disjoint license between the GPL and the (to them) unacceptable > Artistic License. They grant permission as follows: > > This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > it under the terms of either: > > a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free > Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any > later version, or > b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit. > > That's it. Why can't we do the same? > > -Dan Veditz > > > >
