Re: request for clarification of MPL license

Michael Lyubomirskiy wrote:

> please help a newbie with understanding MPL. 

n.p.m.license is a better newsgroup for this. Setting follow-ups there.

> I have understood that if I
> modify source code of one of the components of Mozilla, I need to release
> the source. 

That's not necessarily true. You need to make the source available to 
anyone you make a binary version available to.

> Now the question is, what constitutes modifying a component and
> what constitutes making a new component. 

This is clearly defined in the license itself in section 1.9 (definition 
of "Modifications").

> I would guess that if I write some
> lines of code in a source file given in distribution, that consitutes
> modification. Now, suppose I write an additional file with more
> functionality, such as for the Gecko rendering engine, and modify the
> existing files to invoke procedures I have written in a new file. Obviously,
> I must then release the original file with all the extra calls. But how
> about the new file? Does this then constitute a unique new addition which I
> can keep close source, or is this still a modification of Gecko engine as a
> whole that must be released? 

It depends. If you copied any existing MPLed code into your new file, 
it's a Modification. If you didn't, it's not.

Gerv