749312 - Firefox beta release source requirements ?

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(mozilla.org :: Licensing, task, P2)

Description

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

Hi,

For every current Firefox beta and release, we create source tarballs and bundles [1].  As I understand it, this is a requirement of our open source license, that we provide source for every release.

We're planning on moving to even-more-rapid betas in July.  Currently we're releasing a Firefox beta every week; in July we'll start releasing a Firefox beta every day.  Since we're changing the scope, we're making changes to our processes to be more streamlined.

What are our requirements for source?

We'd like to stop tagging the Mercurial repositories (multiple tags every night would get very messy), and we'd like to possibly reduce the source bundles + tarballs to a single text file with a link to the revision on http://hg.mozilla.org/ .

Would that be sufficient?

[1] e.g., https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/13.0b1/source/

Comment 1

[Liz Compton [:liz]]

Gerv - This looks like one for you.

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

There's no need for this bug to be confidential - moving.

The MPL 2's requirements on this are in sections 3.1 and 3.2. By design :-), they are not onerous to comply with.

3.2: "You must inform recipients of the Executable Form how they can obtain a copy of such Source Code Form by reasonable means in a timely manner, at a charge no more than the cost of distribution to the recipient". 

It seems to me that giving an Hg URL, plus perhaps a link to a page of simple instructions on how to use it to download the source ("1. Install hg from <url>. 2. Type this command.") would be fine. This information needs to be given to everyone who receives the Executable Form; it seems to me that the easiest way to do that would be to make it accessible the About text somewhere.

The URL concerned is already in about:buildconfig. about:license is linked from the bottom of the About box, with the link title being "Licensing Information". That seems like a reasonable path. Let's enhance about:license to contain a link to about:buildconfig, plus the existing link to the wiki instructions about how to use Hg, and I think we are done. 

If we do that, we can stop shipping sourceballs entirely.

Gerv

Comment 3

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #2)
> Let's enhance about:license
> to contain a link to about:buildconfig, plus the existing link to the wiki
> instructions about how to use Hg, and I think we are done. 

Sounds good to me!
What's the next step, a bug to update about:license ?  Or is this that bug?

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Let's not morph this bug; filed bug XXXXXX.

It would be legally sufficient to inform recipients in the binary's About box; however, a mozilla-source.txt file saying "Here's the Hg URL, and here's a link to pull and build instructions" in each directory is polite and takes up very little space. So we should do that too. Can you arrange that, Aki? Should we use this bug?

Something like:

The binaries in this directory are made available to you under the Mozilla Public License v.2
(MPL 2):
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/

The source code used to build these binaries is specified by the following unique URL:
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c5201306217e

Instructions for downloading and building this source code can be found here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_Source_Code_%28Mercurial%29


That middle URL would, of course, be variable depending on the directory etc.

Gerv

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Sorry; I should have said, I filed bug 750294.

Gerv

Comment 6

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #4)
> It would be legally sufficient to inform recipients in the binary's About
> box; however, a mozilla-source.txt file saying "Here's the Hg URL, and
> here's a link to pull and build instructions" in each directory is polite
> and takes up very little space. So we should do that too. Can you arrange
> that, Aki? Should we use this bug?

Sure, I can do that.

Comment 7

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

I'm doing that work in bug 748796.

Comment 8

[Kelley Cook]

PMFJI, but I'd like to point out that you don't need to provide instructions on how to install hg in order to pull the source.  

The mercurial web interface already does this.  From the revision link provided (e.g. https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/FIREFOX_13_0b4_RELEASE ) you just click on one of the bz2, zip, gz links at the top and the website will generate a complete source tarball for that day.