Re: Proposed policy change: permit use of LGPLed libraries

On 21.05.12 17:49, Gervase Markham wrote:
> Mozilla is a large and complex codebase, made up of many parts we have
> written and many parts where we leverage the work of others. Mozilla
> (the organization) wants people to reuse our codebase to build their own
> cool products - browsers, email clients and other things. Therefore,
> keeping the copyright licensing status of the codebase simple has been
> an important goal.
>
> So, our unwritten licensing rule of thumb for the last decade is that we
> have wanted to be able to say to potential downstream users of our code:
> "OK with the MPL? Then you can use our stuff." Since 2004 or so, we have
> also provided the option for people to use it under the LGPL or GPL, but
> not at the cost of MPL-based simplicity.
>
> This has meant that all code which goes into the core Mozilla products
> has needed to be licensed under the tri-license (now MPL 2) or a license
> compatible with all three parts of it - for a long time, basically MIT
> or BSD, but now MPL 2 is Apache 2-compatible, Apache 2 as well.
>
> However, there is a significant body of code available under the LGPL
> which it would be very useful to be able to use. One current example is
> LibUSB, which we could use to provide WebUSB support in B2G. Examples in
> the past include Cairo (where we did manage to persuade upstream to make
> a licence change; but this was difficult and is not always possible).
>
> If we used libraries under the LGPL in Mozilla, our "rule of thumb"
> would no longer be true. Downstream users would need to read and
> understand both the MPL and the LGPL to make sure they met their
> licensing obligations.
>
> On the other hand, open source licensing is much better understood now
> than it was a decade ago, and the LGPL is a common licence which legal
> departments will have usually heard of and know about. So the downsides
> of this are not as bad as they once were.
>
> We therefore propose that we change our stance on the trade-off between
> speed of development and licensing simplicity, and alter our policy to
> permit Mozilla to include clearly-demarcated 3rd-party LGPLed libraries,
> with appropriate labelling and reminders against accidental code-copying
> to other parts of the codebase.
>
> Comments on this proposal are welcome in the mozilla.legal discussion forum:
> https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#legal
>
> Gerv
>


The example of libusb is interesting. I read that as: If a downstream 
phone maker wanted to use b2g under the provisions of the mpl to bundle 
it together with proprietory code under an EULA, they'd need to find a 
replacement for that block of code?

Axel