Closed Bug 605423 Opened 14 years ago Closed 11 years ago

Fix license list: Replace MPL 1.1 with MPL 2.0 in license list.

Categories

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Developer Pages, defect)

x86
Linux
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED FIXED
2013-04-18

People

(Reporter: gerv, Assigned: jorgev)

References

Details

(Keywords: qawanted)

Currently, the AMO list of licenses to choose from looks like this:
http://people.mozilla.com/~chowse/drop/amo/devtools/v2/Addon_03_Authors.png

This is a good selection, except that I strongly suspect almost no-one really wants "MPL", what they want is the "same license as Mozilla", which is MPL/LGPL/GPL triple. Also, it's important for the GPL whether licenses are "any later version" or not, and "any later version" should be the default (as it is in the licence).

So the list should be:

Standard Mozilla Terms - MPL 1.1/LGPL 2.1/GPL 2.0 or later
Mozilla Public License (MPL) v1.1 or later
GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.0 or later
GNU General Public License (GPL) v3.0 or later
GNU Lesser General Public License (GPL) v2.1 or later
GNU Lesser General Public License (GPL) v3.0 or later
MIT/X11 License
BSD License
Other

with the first entry being the default.

Gerv
Counts for versions with specific licenses:

MPL       10347
GPL2      1980
GPL3      3864
LGPL2.1   167
LGPL3     638
BSD       885
MIT       755
Other     3263
Blank     51559

Can we eliminate some of these options or provide some guidance?  It's an intimidating list and I suspect few people know the subtle differences.  We have an 'other' field if someone wants to choose something like LGPL2.1.
Target Milestone: --- → 5.12.3
Hmm. Useful data. Is this field mandatory in the new version? I think it should be...

We could probably eliminate the LGPL (and either leave it as a display option, or switch it to "other" for existing projects). It would be nice to remove one of MIT and BSD, but there's no clear winner.

As for guidance, it's tricky because if you advise people, they can come back and say "you made me do X, which has consequence Y, and I didn't mean for that to happen!" I think we can advise if we stick to clear statements of fact. I suggest this:

(*) The License Mozilla Uses - MPL 1.1/LGPL 2.1/GPL 2.0 or later

( ) Mozilla Public License (MPL) v1.1 or later
( ) GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.0 or later
( ) GNU General Public License (GPL) v3.0 or later
( ) MIT/X11 License
( ) BSD License

( ) Other

i.e. put some gaps in it, and preselect The License Mozilla Uses by default.

CCing Luis to see if he has thoughts.

Gerv
The licenses we show and the omissions (tri-license) were chosen by our legal team last year and reviewed again this year.

At this step, developers are supposed to select the license they already chose for their add-on so it's easier to figure out what each add-on is licensed under. It's not intended to be a license shopping section with a featured license.

As we don't modify the actual add-on file after this selection, the chosen license only displays on the add-on's details page and I'm not sure that's sufficient to consider the add-on file actually under that license.

Perhaps our expectation that this step is to select the license *already chosen* and included in the add-on's file should be made clearer.
(In reply to comment #3)
> The licenses we show and the omissions (tri-license) were chosen by our legal
> team last year and reviewed again this year.

Is it possible to explain why the tri-license was specifically omitted? Giving addon authors at least the _option_ to use the same code license as Mozilla, so we can use their code in our product, seems like a no brainer. What am I missing?

> At this step, developers are supposed to select the license they already chose
> for their add-on so it's easier to figure out what each add-on is licensed
> under. It's not intended to be a license shopping section with a featured
> license.

Surely it's in our best interests to have as many addons as possible with clear licensing - and with open source licensing, so if they are popular and the author loses interest, other community members can maintain them. So if someone comes to upload their addon and has not yet chosen a licence, we can either:

a) encourage them to choose one, preferably an open source one, and even more preferably the one we use

or

b) say nothing, and leave the question unclear for that addon.

I'd opt for a), myself.

> As we don't modify the actual add-on file after this selection, the chosen
> license only displays on the add-on's details page and I'm not sure that's
> sufficient to consider the add-on file actually under that license.

Declarations of intent are legally important. Many Mozilla files don't explicitly have a tri-license header, but I think a judge would not be impressed if someone tried to avoid the license terms on that basis.

Gerv
Target Milestone: 5.12.3 → 5.12.4
Whiteboard: [ddn]
Target Milestone: 5.12.4 → Future
Blocks: 715442
Note that because "MPL 1.1" has been chosen here, any addon which upgrades to MPL 2 will have to add the "incompatible" language from Exhibit B... which means that code from these 10,000+ addons under the "MPL" is _still_ not usable in Mozilla itself.

This is still a big foot-shooting move.

At the very least, AMO needs an "MPL 1.1" and an "MPL 2" entry, so some addons can choose "MPL 2" and finally have Mozilla-compatible licensing. (Those currently under "MPL" would migrate to "MPL 1.1").

Gerv
Has the license list been switched from MPL 1.1 to MPL 2.0? If so, this can be closed; otherwise, should be retitled.
Unfortunately the license list hasn't been changed, so it's still not possible to select MPL 2.0... The only difference I see as opposed to the screenshot is that I don't see the abbreviations (MPL,GPL,LGPL) behind the license names in the list.

I can't see any difference between amo and https://addons-dev.allizom.org/ either, so this won't change any time soon :-(

I'm not sure about retitling this bug, what exactly do you have in mind?
Sorry, I was unclear. Since the tri-license is deprecated, the new title (and correct action) is:

"Replace MPL 1.1 with MPL 2.0 in license list."

The "or later" issue is dead and no longer relevant.
Summary: Fix license list: add Mozilla licensing scheme (MPL/LGPL/GPL), plus "or later" → Fix license list: Replace MPL 1.1 with MPL 2.0 in license list.
Is the "choose a licence" list different from the "valid values for the licence field" list? If so, we can change out MPL 1.1 for MPL 2.0 in the former only. If they are the same list, then it has to be an addition.

Either way, clouserw: this doesn't seem like a complex change. And the current situation _still_ means that "an MPL-based licensing compatible with Mozilla's codebase" is not one of the options on Mozilla's addons site. Which is madness.

Gerv
It sounds like this is what we want:

1) Add MPL 2.0 to the license list.
2) Remove the "on form" flag of the MPL 1.1 license, so that it doesn't appear as an option anymore.
3) Set the "Builtin" value of MPL 2.0 to "1" so it shows up as the first option, and remove it from MPL 1.1.

This doesn't require any code changes. Wil, is this correct? I can try this on staging to make sure it works.
Flags: needinfo?(clouserw)
(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #10)
> It sounds like this is what we want:
> 
> 1) Add MPL 2.0 to the license list.
> 2) Remove the "on form" flag of the MPL 1.1 license, so that it doesn't
> appear as an option anymore.
> 3) Set the "Builtin" value of MPL 2.0 to "1" so it shows up as the first
> option, and remove it from MPL 1.1.
> 
> This doesn't require any code changes. Wil, is this correct? I can try this
> on staging to make sure it works.

Sure, but it's been so long since I dealt with license code I couldn't tell you for sure.  We used to have the license texts on the site, but those may have died with the transition from PHP.  I hope they did.
Flags: needinfo?(clouserw)
I made the changes on staging and they appear to work correctly. Krupa, can you verify that submitting and editing an add-on works correctly? We want to make sure that everything continues to work correctly with the MPL 2.0 license option.
Keywords: productwantedqawanted
Whiteboard: [ddn]
Thanks, Jorge :-)

Gerv
Hmz. I changed the license of Forward to MPL 2.0 on addons-dev.allizom.org, but my extension still shows up as MPL1.1 (only now it is labelled as Custom License) and it also says MPL1.1 when I add a new version...
That's bug 725706, which shouldn't stop us from resolving this bug.
Jorge: can we ship this?

Gerv
Krupa, can you please verify the changes in comment #12?
Flags: needinfo?(krupa.mozbugs)
Krupa: ping?

Gerv
Jorge: how do we move this forward?

Gerv
Tested the change myself and it worked as expected. I just did the same changes in prod and they also look okay.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(krupa.mozbugs)
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Assignee: nobody → jorge
Target Milestone: Future → 2013-04-18
Depends on: 900831
Product: addons.mozilla.org → addons.mozilla.org Graveyard
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