Re: Reusing the MPL in non-Mozilla projects

Actually, there are a bunch of projects that use the MPL.   The larger 
projects tend to make their own licenses; smaller projects use the MPL.  
Generally the smaller projects don't get as much attention so the use of 
the MPL itself isn't as clear.

There isn't much discussion of this, as we haven't tried to evangelize 
use of the license.   So we don't have a lot of discussions of using the 
MPL.    The CDDL was created for a couple of different reasons, it's 
like the MPL but makes some changes as well.

The MPL is generally considered reusable.  There's an open  question 
about whether to try to take choice of law out of the MPL but that 
hasn't happened yet. 

On promoting the use of the MPL I have  somewhat different view than 
Frank.   I think we want to avoid getting into "license wars" and some 
open source projects are very focused on promoting their licenses.  I 
would like the Foundation to be a voice for finding ways to help more 
code interoperate.    There are a number of people and organizations not 
interested in the GPL, and so I don't see that as the answer.  The MPL 
might be helpful.  I agree with Frank that I don't see the Foundation 
taking on licensing evangelism as a focus.  But I also think that 
avoiding MPL derivatives when possible and having the MPL as a useful 
choice for people who want it is a good goal. 

mitchell


Frank Hecker wrote:
> Julien Ponge wrote:
>> I am particularly interested in the MPL license for future projects, be
>> it by applying the sole MPL or by applying a multi-licenses combo. I
>> have searched a bit about using the MPL in non-Mozilla projects, but
>> there are surprisingly not that many related informations...
>
> That's because most uses of the MPL in non-Mozilla projects have been 
> in the form of MPL-derivative licenses, and not the MPL itself.
>
>> 1. Is the MPL a reusable license, or is its wording very tied to the
>> Mozilla project? The CDDL was apprently created by Sun to be a reusable
>> MPL-derivative, but I cannot clearly see how much this is accurate or
>> not.
>
> The MPL is sort of reusable, but in practice it hasn't been re-used 
> that much in non-Mozilla projects. See below for more on this topic.
>
>> 2. The license is bound by the laws of California (section 11), so how
>> about projects started in non-US countries?
>
> If you want to use the original MPL then you are "stuck" with 
> California jurisdiction. This is one major reason why people have done 
> their own MPL-based licenses under other names.
>
>> 3. Does the Mozilla Foundation intend to promote its licensing model to
>> other projects?
>
> It's not really a major priority for the Foundation to promote the use 
> of the MPL in non-Mozilla projects, for the following reasons:
>
> First, the MPL is "showing its age" somewhat. There are some areas 
> where the license could be made clear, could be brought up to date 
> with current thinking on how open source licenses should work, and in 
> general  could be improved. It's possible that a new "MPL 2" or 
> similar license could be created to address these issues, but that's 
> not an immediate prospect IMO.
>
> Second, in the world of traditional open source and free software the 
> MPL is somewhat handicapped because the Free Software Foundation 
> considers it to be incompatible with the GPL. Given the large amount 
> of GPL-licensed software out there, this poses a problem for a project 
> that uses a pure-MPL licensing scheme. (And in fact this is why the 
> Mozilla project itself shifted to using a MPL/GPL/LGPL "tri-license".)
>
> Finally, in the world of "corporate open source" the MPL approach has 
> been much more popular, but most corporations have opted to use the 
> MPL as a base for their own licenses, as opposed to adopting the MPL 
> "as is". This is partly to address questions like jurisdiction (as 
> mentioned above) but also because corporations employ lawyers, and 
> lawyers always like to revise licenses and other legal documents to 
> suit their own ideas :-)
>
> Frank
>