539671 - Add license information to Zamboni

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Code Quality, defect)

Description

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

From what I can tell, Zamboni currently has no license info at all, and is therefore copyrighted. This is not what we want, so we should add license info.

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/license-policy.html looks like we'll have to go with the Tri-License here.

Comment 1

[Jeff Balogh (:jbalogh)]

Who can we talk to about what license we can use?  This isn't in a "mozilla.org" repository right now, so the rules don't technically apply.  And I don't think they were considering website code when those rules were written.

Really, I don't care what OSS license we're using, as long as there's no license noise in our source code.  The MPL is a bane on my small, pretty code files.

Comment 2

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

Ask in mozilla.legal

Comment 3

[Jeff Balogh (:jbalogh)]

Begging and pleading: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.legal/browse_thread/thread/bd2afc19ab7d2c06#

Comment 4

[Jeff Balogh (:jbalogh)]

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.legal/msg/bf436221430760d2

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Hmm. 
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.legal/msg/bf436221430760d2
did not show up in my newsgroup reader, although all the other messages in the thread did.

Having discussed this question with Luis from legal, I've sent Jeff a message about it.

Gerv

Comment 6

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

Jeff mentioned, in spite of having decided on this months ago, we didn't actually do anything. Silly me.

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Oh, OK :-)

This is what I said to Jeff by email:

"Hi Jeff,

I owe you a reply about web app licensing from the mozilla.legal newsgroup. My apologies for the long delay.

Having chatted about it with Luis, our view is that we think it's reasonable, when writing code for use in another community, to respect that community's choice of licensing. But we think a core Mozilla web app should be tri-licensed, for consistency with other Mozilla code (sort of the same principle).

So reusable modules can be BSDed or MITed according to language/framework community standards, but the core should be tri-licensed.

As you know, one of the things we hope to fix about the MPL in the revision process (which was planned but not public when you posted your question) is the overwhelming nature of the boilerplate text.

Gerv"

Fred, Jeff: I know this is a bit different to what you had decided. Are you happy to go with the above? If not, it would be great if you could help us understand your position.

Gerv

Comment 8

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Well, since this was assigned to me, I midaired with Gerv just now checking in the BSD:  http://github.com/jbalogh/zamboni/blob/master/LICENSE

Looking back at that thread there is another response saying the MPL isn't appropriate for a website[1].  In fact, aside from Gerv, all I've seen are people who are happy to use it.

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.legal/msg/39e31693fe8c37f1

Comment 9

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Might I respectfully suggest, with all due respect to my good friend Ben Bucksch, that the opinion of the legal counsel of the copyright owner (Luis) and the opinion of the person who handles day-to-day licensing issues for that copyright owner (me) carry a little more weight? (Incidentally, the copyright owner for all Mozilla-employee-or-contractor-authored code is the Mozilla Foundation, not the Mozilla Corporation.)

Ben is making the point that some of the legal provisions of the MPL cannot be enforced if the code is not shared. Which is true. But licensing policy is about community norms and setting expectations as well as legal enforceability. Using a copyleft licence such as the MPL says "we expect you to share with us", whether we can legally enforce that expectation or not.

If copyleft licences such as the MPL and GPL are "inappropriate" for website code, then there is a lot of inappropriately-licensed code out there.

If you strenously object to comment #7, then I can discuss it further with Harvey and (if I can get some of her time) Mitchell.

Gerv

Comment 10

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

(In reply to comment #9)

> If you strenously object to comment #7, then I can discuss it further with
> Harvey and (if I can get some of her time) Mitchell.

Let's do it.  Please add jbalogh and Axel to the discussion also.

Comment 11

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> 
> > If you strenously object to comment #7, then I can discuss it further with
> > Harvey and (if I can get some of her time) Mitchell.
> 
> Let's do it.  Please add jbalogh and Axel to the discussion also.

I would like to lurk in this meeting as well, if you wouldn't mind.

Comment 12

[Luis Villa [Outside Counsel; for non-law use [e-mail]]]

Gerv told me he recently spoke to Mitchell about a related topic; perhaps he could update the bug?

Comment 13

[Luis Villa [Outside Counsel; for non-law use [e-mail]]]

Taking myself off this for now; I or someone from the Moz Legal team can be readded at a later date if necessary.

Comment 14

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

If there is more to do here, please reopen.