[Fedora-legal-list] updating the MPL

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 03/10/2010 01:05 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Tom "spot" Callaway
> <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
>> On 03/10/2010 12:45 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
>>> Hello, Fedora legal geeks.
>>>
>>> Earlier today Mozilla announced that we're launching a community
>>> process to update, simplify, and modernize the MPL. You can find more
>>> information about the process at http://mpl.mozilla.org/
>>>
>>> We're planning to address issues relevant to this group such as making
>>> the license more generic, (hopefully) reducing the number of duplicate
>>> licenses, and making the license easier to understand (so that Fedora
>>> contributors aren't worrying about what it means).  We're fairly
>>> confident that the updated version will continue to fulfill the
>>> requirements of the Open Source Definition
>>
>> It is worth noting that we need it to continue to fulfil the
>> requirements of the Free Software Definition.
> 
> Oh, for some reason I thought it was OSD that Fedora cared about. No
> worries, we're consulting with both FSF and OSI so we've got both
> bases covered.

Nah. The OSI liberally determines that some really... um... awesome
licenses meet the OSD. We don't have that problem with the FSF. :)

>> Bonus brownie points if
>> you can gain compatibility with GPLv2 & GPLv3 without dual licensing. ;)
> 
> Does Fedora have a specific interest in this beyond distaste for the
> inelegance of dual-licensing? If it is causing actual problems in
> practice, that would be good to know.

>From a pure Mozilla-using-the-MPL perspective, no, because AFAIK,
Mozilla always tri-licenses (MPL, GPL, LGPL) to avoid the issue.
However, given that there is ample proof that people pick up the MPL and
either use it standalone or make their own modifications, it would
eliminate a lot of compatibility issues (both real and potential).

>> P.S. No claiming that the new MPL doesn't apply to binaries!
> 
> We're investigating the binary issue.

Really? *sigh* FWIW, the "correct" answer is "Of course, the MPL applies
to binaries." ;)

~spot