Komodo in violation of Mozilla Public License? (fwd)
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters
mertz at gnosis.cx
Tue Apr 10 17:25:51 EDT 2001
David Ascher (Komodo Tech Lead) in email asked for clarification of why
I thought the Komodo licensing terms violate the MPL. I'd like to
clarify for the list, since this IMO is a matter of general concern to
the Python community (David is BCC:'d).
The Mozilla Public License seems to live at:
<http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html>
The chief sections that apparently conflict with Komodo's commercial
licensing terms:
3.1. Application of License.
The Modifications which You create or to which You contribute are
governed by the terms of this License, including without limitation
Section 2.2. The Source Code version of Covered Code may be
distributed only under the terms of this License or a future version
of this License released under Section 6.1, and You must include a
copy of this License with every copy of the Source Code You
distribute. You may not offer or impose any terms on any Source Code
version that alters or restricts the applicable version of this
License or the recipients' rights hereunder. However, You may include
an additional document offering the additional rights described in
Section 3.5.
Komodo is available--as far as I can determine--only under a
substantially different license than the MPL. Specifically, the
ActiveState license imposes many terms that additionally restrict the
recipients rights.
3.2. Availability of Source Code.
Any Modification which You create or to which You contribute must be
made available in Source Code form under the terms of this License
either on the same media as an Executable version or via an accepted
Electronic Distribution Mechanism to anyone to whom you made an
Executable version available; and if made available via Electronic
Distribution Mechanism, must remain available for at least twelve (12)
months after the date it initially became available, or at least six
(6) months after a subsequent version of that particular Modification
has been made available to such recipients. You are responsible for
ensuring that the Source Code version remains available even if the
Electronic Distribution Mechanism is maintained by a third party.
ActiveState does not make source code for their modifications available.
That seems pretty staightforward.
Even if there is some other provision in the MPL that somehow authorizes
ActiveState's license (I don't see it, but again, IANAL), the terms
certainly seem to violate the *spirit* of the open source communities
participation in the Mozilla project.
Btw. Ascher also mentioned IBM's Web Browser for OS/2, which was also
recently released. As an actual living OS/2 user (most of the time;
check my headers sometime), I was aware of this release and even read
the discussion of it on an OS/2 newsgroup. I confess, however, that
since Warpzilla is also available free-of-cost and with full sourcecode,
I failed to give much thought to IBM's licensing terms. I admit that
there seems to be a similar issue... but also understand that it is
*really* unlikely that IBM failed to look at everything with a large
team of good lawyers.
Yours, Lulu...
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