Re: Reusing the MPL in non-Mozilla projects

Mitchell Baker wrote:
> 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.

Let me add that Mitchell's and my views aren't actually that far apart. 
I agree that the MPL approach is a good one for people who are looking 
for something between MIT/BSD permissiveness and the GPL's strong 
copyleft; clearly that's one major reason why so many new open source 
licenses over the past few years have been created as direct MPL 
derivatives (often times just being renamed versions with minor changes) 
or have been heavily influenced by MPL principles and language. I also 
agree that a lot of people using MPL derivatives could and should have 
just used the original MPL instead.

Frank

-- 
Frank Hecker
[email protected]