Re: list archives?

[Stuart Ballard]

SOELL Markus Helmut wrote:
 
 Is there by chance another archive besides Geocrawler, to read these
 messages from the licensing list?

I suggest news://news.mozilla.org/netscape.public.mozilla.license

For me, at least, it carries all messages since the dawn of time (the
first message is 03/02/98 - a month or two before the source release).

The downside (if you can call it that - personally I prefer it) is that
you have to read it as a newsgroup rather than a mailing list.

Stuart.

Re: LDAP C SDK 5.0 MPL/GPL

[Stuart Ballard]

Bjorn Reese wrote:
 
 As an example, we have been using MPL for another project, and have
 naturally received requests, similar to those that the Mozilla
 community have received, about re-distributing the project under a
 GPL-compatible license. The disjunctive MPL/GPL dual-license was
 considered and rejected because it would allow the project to become
 GPL-only, which is would be unacceptable to us (the project is used
 in several commercial applications). Instead we opted for a MPL/BSD
 dual-license. This weakens the copyleft of the project, which is the
 the opposite effect of what the FSF wants to achieve -- and the irony
 of it all is, that GPL was the direct cause of this shift.

Hang on... if you are using MPL/BSD (so long as you mean modified-BSD,
that is, without the advertising clause - which is the only verson
GPL-compatible) then you can still create a GPL fork:

1) Use the program under the terms of the BSD license,
2) Link in some other code that is GPL'd
3) Release the combined software as GPL

The BSD license does not prohibit this, so you're still GPL-forkable but
now you're also BSD-forkable and proprietary-forkable as well!

Also, I don't quite understand the benefit of a MPL/BSD dual license.
Surely everything that is permitted under the MPL is also permitted
under BSD, so MPL/BSD is just equivalent to BSD by itself?

Stuart.

Re: LDAP C SDK 5.0 MPL/GPL

[Stuart Ballard]

Bjorn Reese wrote:
 
 Stuart Ballard wrote:
 
  Hang on... if you are using MPL/BSD (so long as you mean modified-BSD,
  that is, without the advertising clause - which is the only verson
  GPL-compatible) then you can still create a GPL fork:
 
  1) Use the program under the terms of the BSD license,
  2) Link in some other code that is GPL'd
  3) Release the combined software as GPL
 
 If MPL had been GPL-compatible, then you could have done the same with
 purely MPL covered code.

I know. I misunderstood your previous comments as saying I don't want
to use MPL/GPL because you can create a pure-GPL fork, so I used MPL/BSD
instead.

 There is a subtle difference between the GPL fork you are talking about
 and the one I am talking about. With an MPL/BSD dual-license my code will
 remain under either MPL or BSD, regardless of what the combined software
 is released as. With an MPL/GPL dual-license my code can become GPL-only,
 which would be against my wishes.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction, so I'll break down my logic
more carefully, and you can tell me which step of my logic doesn't match
yours.

Under an MPL/BSD dual license, I can do the following:

1) Download your code
2) Elect to use it under the BSD license.
3) Modify it (eg by linking in other software, but also potentially by
just modifying a few trivial lines of code)
4) Release my modified version under the GPL.

Now, if Joe Developer downloads my modified version, the only rights
he's given are those of the GPL; even the parts of your code that are
embodied in mine are only available under the GPL to him. So in a way I
have changed your code to GPL.

However, in practice, if Joe Developer wants MPL or BSD rights to your
parts of the code, there's no problem in him downloading the original
code from you and thereby getting the MPL/BSD rights to that code.

The upshot is that I can fork your code into a GPL license (so that
people who download directly from me only have GPL rights, even on your
code), but I can never stop people from getting the MPL/BSD terms if
they go directly through you.

If all of this is correct for the MPL/BSD combination you used, then as
far as I can see all the same steps also apply to an MPL/GPL dual
license. I can still do a GPL fork in the exact same way that I can
with the BSD license, but other people can still go through you and get
the original MPL terms.

So what's the difference?

  Also, I don't quite understand the benefit of a MPL/BSD dual license.
  Surely everything that is permitted under the MPL is also permitted
  under BSD, so MPL/BSD is just equivalent to BSD by itself?
 
 There is no benefit per se, and none were intended -- it is all about
 legalism. The code was originally released under MPL. Years later the
 contact to many of the contributors had been lost, and it was thus
 impossible to ask their permission for a change of license to solve
 the GPL-incompatibility problem. Instead, section 13 Multiple-licensed
 Code in MPL 1.1 was used to create a dual-license.

I don't have time to go and read the legalese of the MPL right now, but
I'm surprised that you can do this. Netscape and mozilla.org have been
trying for ages to dual-license the mozilla code, but they had to get
permission from all of the contributors and they haven't been able to do
this yet. How were you able to dual-license the code without permission
from all the contributors, and why doesn't the same logic apply to
Netscape and mozilla.org?

Thanks,

Stuart.