Re: notification requirements [was Re: MPL Alpha 1 Draft Released]

On 8/19/10 2:16 PM, Luis Villa wrote:

> This still 'gives credit', though not as explicit as part (b) of the
> language you cited (notice in executable versions or documentation.)
>
> My personal experience is that virtually no one reads documentation, so that
> any requirements pertaining to documentation don't actually do much to help
> give credit. But you're right that the removal of 'notice in an Executable
> version' makes the new language less forceful, and you're not the first to
> mention this (it came up in the co-ment tool as well.)
>
> Do others here have thoughts/comments/concerns about this area? We'll take a
> harder look, but if others have thoughts about it, that would be great to
> hear as well. Thanks.

This whole discussion has focused on "giving credit", which I think is 
misguided.

I understand that people who create software really want to be acknowledged: 
it feels good to know that your code is part of products, and it looks good 
to family, friends, and potential employers. But the associated costs are 
that people who do release software have to either have to maintain drastic 
change-control practices in order to keep the MPL credits list up to date, 
or risk accidentally violating the license terms while forgetting somebody. 
I don't think that is a price we should be enforcing at the license level.

There are other issues, of course: the license could require that you credit 
all *copyright holders*, but then most of our core contributors would not be 
given individual credit, because they work for Mozilla or other entities 
which own their copyright.

I think the more interesting question here is whether we should be able to 
identify all the copyright holders for a particular piece of code. As far as 
I can tell, that was the original reason for listing "Contributors" in the 
MPL 1.1 header, so that you could go back later and know exactly who has a 
copyright interest in that code. I think it's much more important for the 
MPL 1.2 effort to decide whether this is an important goal or not.

Leave "credit" to the community, who can choose to credit individuals or 
copyright owners (or not, as long as the license makes the source code 
available), and can also choose to credit important non-code contributors. A 
license is a poor tool for trying to demand and control credit, which is 
primarily a social issue.

--BDS