279215 - jarred and preprocessed chrome doesn't have MPL in each file

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(mozilla.org :: Licensing, task)

Description

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

(mitchell asked me to put this in a bug)

Basically, for Firefox we currently preprocess the MPL header out of chrome
files, and since we don't have a true tri-license in the zip builds, the
question was raised whether those files are being distributed under the MPL
properly.  i.e. if you download the file without an MPL, extract the files, and
reuse without respecting the license in the original source, is that legal or
should we do something like put a generic license in the root of each chrome jar?

This is, of course, "compiled" code in a certain sense, so while the mechanics
may make it easy to get at the source, its not true source code, so I'm not sure
what the implied license/copyright would be in that case.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Mitchell, any update on this? at some point Bug 279698 should get fixed (some
files don't get stripped), but if this is a Bad Thing(tm) then I don't want to
waste my time.

Comment 2

[harvey anderson]

A similar issue arose regarding licenses for test cases. Should a Public Domain license statement go in each file or only in the directories. Discussed this with Gerv, and we concluded it should go in each file as a best practice. 

Mike-can we catch up by phone, I have a few questions to make sure I understand the situation.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

The MPL is now the EULA for Firefox, and so covers all shipped files. So I think this is no longer an issue. Harvey?

Gerv

Comment 4

[harvey anderson]

correct. /hja

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Thanks Harvey!