Re: Source code via download -- MPL Alpha 1 Draft Released

  On 07.09.2010 17:42, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 20/08/10 01:22, Ben Bucksch wrote:
>> You can always offer a download on your own server and cite the URL in
>> the app.
>
> And that was one of its most annoying provisions. When you are doing 
> daily builds on 3 platforms in 75 languages, do you have any idea how 
> much disk space it requires to keep source available for 6 months?

Yes. None. 
<http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/archive/4958e6add3c9.tar.bz2> is 
fine. (Plus a similar link to the locale source.)

> The point is that you don't place unnecessary burdens on the 
> redistributor. Limiting it to the number of copies of the binary 
> distributed bases an upper bound on e.g. the amount of money you need 
> to spend on bandwidth and your FTP server. Mandating you make it 
> available to the whole world opens you up to unlimited costs. That's 
> unreasonable, IMO.

I've done it. Even in year 2000, when bandwidth was 1000 times more 
expansive than now, the FTP traffic costs were not significant.

Fact is: if you need to write a paper letter to the company and wait for 
it being answers, as some companies have demanded for GPL, *that* is an 
"unreasonable burden" on the part of the open-source developer / 
customer who is just curious what they did with the Mozilla source. A 
burden that is so high that I am unlikely to do it, unless in 
exceptional circumstances.

Sorry, but source code provision is at the very core of open-source. It 
must be loophole-free.

Ben