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MPL, copyleft, and the recent H5OS stuff as an example of a threat to Mozilla...
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a345923...@gmail.com
Jul 21, 2015, 3:27:55 PM7/21/15
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
Hey all, I'm not active in the Mozilla community but am a fan and user. I have some concerns. I'd like for someone to answer these questions that I have, and I guess I'd also like to just start a discussion about this topic, too. Thanks.
My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ? More specifically, why is it that this http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/ was able to happen?
Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary. So why does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
Doesn't that represent an existential threat to Mozilla itself, since anyone can come along and use the open sourced stuff to buttress their own closed source applications/systems, which will then come around and compete with the original open source stuff? How can Mozilla compete against something like this, since any innovation they make can be integrated into a competing platform, but Mozilla can't do it the other way around?
Didn't a similar thing happen in the 90s with BSD and OSX? When Mozilla was created, that whole thing had already happened, so shouldn't they have known this would be a risk? Why wasn't Mozilla just using the GPL from the beginning? What is the advantage of MPL over GPL, given the disadvantage of MPL that I'm talking about?
And what about now, is there any chance of Mozilla switching its stuff to the GPL? Is there any chance of Mozilla strengthening the "share-alike" aspect of the MPL? How difficult would it be to change the license to make it protect open source better? How difficult would it be to switch to GPL? And what needs to happen in order to spur that change? IMO this H5OS stuff sounds like a pretty big deal, and theoretically all of Mozilla's code is vulnerable to that kind of thing, and there could be more similar events in the future. I hope you guys really think about this.
My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ? More specifically, why is it that this http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/ was able to happen?
Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary. So why does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
Doesn't that represent an existential threat to Mozilla itself, since anyone can come along and use the open sourced stuff to buttress their own closed source applications/systems, which will then come around and compete with the original open source stuff? How can Mozilla compete against something like this, since any innovation they make can be integrated into a competing platform, but Mozilla can't do it the other way around?
Didn't a similar thing happen in the 90s with BSD and OSX? When Mozilla was created, that whole thing had already happened, so shouldn't they have known this would be a risk? Why wasn't Mozilla just using the GPL from the beginning? What is the advantage of MPL over GPL, given the disadvantage of MPL that I'm talking about?
And what about now, is there any chance of Mozilla switching its stuff to the GPL? Is there any chance of Mozilla strengthening the "share-alike" aspect of the MPL? How difficult would it be to change the license to make it protect open source better? How difficult would it be to switch to GPL? And what needs to happen in order to spur that change? IMO this H5OS stuff sounds like a pretty big deal, and theoretically all of Mozilla's code is vulnerable to that kind of thing, and there could be more similar events in the future. I hope you guys really think about this.
Kyle Huey
Jul 21, 2015, 7:01:01 PM7/21/15
to a345923...@gmail.com, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
I'll assume this is not a troll, hopefully I'm not wrong :) Responses inline.
On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 3:30 AM, <a345923...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey all, I'm not active in the Mozilla community but am a fan and user. I have some concerns. I'd like for someone to answer these questions that I have, and I guess I'd also like to just start a discussion about this topic, too. Thanks.
>
>
> My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ?
IANAL, etc. The easiest way to describe the difference between the
LGPL and the MPL 2.0 is that the LGPL applies copyleft at the binary
level (in other words, to a shared library) while the MPL 2.0 applies
it at the source code file level. This allows MPL 2.0 licensed code
to be statically linked with proprietary code, while LGPL code must be
dynamically linked.
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/FAQ.html covers this in some detail.
> More specifically, why is it that this http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/ was able to happen?
For the same reason that any commercialization of open source
technology does, it's permitted by the license? There are many
billion dollar companies doing work based on the Linux kernel, for
example.
> Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary.
Seeing as there are no public products, code, plans, etc, there's no
way to know what they plan to do.
But I would encourage you not to worry. There are a number of vendors
who "leech" off of Linux, contributing at most crappy drivers for
their crappy hardware (if they even do that, look at Allwinner for
example). That doesn't seem to be a problem for Linux.
> So why does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
For the same reason that people choose even less restrictive licenses
like Apache/MIT/BSD over the MPL 2.0, the LGPL, or the GPL: they
believe that making their code easier to reuse is worth the possible
consequences of not requiring disclosure of modifications.
> Doesn't that represent an existential threat to Mozilla itself, since anyone can come along and use the open sourced stuff to buttress their own closed source applications/systems, which will then come around and compete with the original open source stuff? How can Mozilla compete against something like this, since any innovation they make can be integrated into a competing platform, but Mozilla can't do it the other way around?
Mozilla has been using the MPL for 15+ years and it has never
imperiled the survival of the project before, so its hard to see how
it can be an existential threat.
Mozilla employs a few hundred engineers to work on the code full time,
so if you are maintaining a fork just keeping up with upstream will
require a lot of effort. That encourages any downstream consumers to
upstream their changes to avoid the maintenance burden. Nearly all of
the Firefox forks that I'm aware of are either very minor forks
(Iceweasel, Icecat, etc) or are far behind (Pale Moon, Flock, etc).
The only exception I can think of is TenFourFox (Cameron Kaiser is a
hero).
For end users a lot of the value of Mozilla products comes in the form
of the various brands which tell them they're getting a high quality
open source product developed in line with the goals of the Mozilla
Foundation. Mozilla trademarks are not freely licensed. The need to
create/market/etc your own branding serves as another economic
disincentive to forking our code and refusing to contribute back.
> Didn't a similar thing happen in the 90s with BSD and OSX? When Mozilla was created, that whole thing had already happened, so shouldn't they have known this would be a risk? Why wasn't Mozilla just using the GPL from the beginning? What is the advantage of MPL over GPL, given the disadvantage of MPL that I'm talking about?
Mozilla was created with a less restrictive license because Netscape
wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
copyleft at all.
> And what about now, is there any chance of Mozilla switching its stuff to the GPL? Is there any chance of Mozilla strengthening the "share-alike" aspect of the MPL? How difficult would it be to change the license to make it protect open source better? How difficult would it be to switch to GPL? And what needs to happen in order to spur that change? IMO this H5OS stuff sounds like a pretty big deal, and theoretically all of Mozilla's code is vulnerable to that kind of thing, and there could be more similar events in the future. I hope you guys really think about this.
I am not omniscient but I don't see any reason why this one incident
would result in any licensing changes at Mozilla. Licensing is not a
silver bullet, particularly when dealing with organizations based in
parts of the world that are, shall we say, less respectful of IP law.
Ask the linux-sunxi community how effective the GPL has been at
compelling compliance from Allwinner. Ultimately I think this will
turn out to be a relatively minor event, and one that would not have
been prevented by a stronger license anyways.
- Kyle
On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 3:30 AM, <a345923...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey all, I'm not active in the Mozilla community but am a fan and user. I have some concerns. I'd like for someone to answer these questions that I have, and I guess I'd also like to just start a discussion about this topic, too. Thanks.
>
>
> My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ?
LGPL and the MPL 2.0 is that the LGPL applies copyleft at the binary
level (in other words, to a shared library) while the MPL 2.0 applies
it at the source code file level. This allows MPL 2.0 licensed code
to be statically linked with proprietary code, while LGPL code must be
dynamically linked.
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/FAQ.html covers this in some detail.
> More specifically, why is it that this http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/ was able to happen?
technology does, it's permitted by the license? There are many
billion dollar companies doing work based on the Linux kernel, for
example.
> Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary.
way to know what they plan to do.
But I would encourage you not to worry. There are a number of vendors
who "leech" off of Linux, contributing at most crappy drivers for
their crappy hardware (if they even do that, look at Allwinner for
example). That doesn't seem to be a problem for Linux.
> So why does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
like Apache/MIT/BSD over the MPL 2.0, the LGPL, or the GPL: they
believe that making their code easier to reuse is worth the possible
consequences of not requiring disclosure of modifications.
> Doesn't that represent an existential threat to Mozilla itself, since anyone can come along and use the open sourced stuff to buttress their own closed source applications/systems, which will then come around and compete with the original open source stuff? How can Mozilla compete against something like this, since any innovation they make can be integrated into a competing platform, but Mozilla can't do it the other way around?
imperiled the survival of the project before, so its hard to see how
it can be an existential threat.
Mozilla employs a few hundred engineers to work on the code full time,
so if you are maintaining a fork just keeping up with upstream will
require a lot of effort. That encourages any downstream consumers to
upstream their changes to avoid the maintenance burden. Nearly all of
the Firefox forks that I'm aware of are either very minor forks
(Iceweasel, Icecat, etc) or are far behind (Pale Moon, Flock, etc).
The only exception I can think of is TenFourFox (Cameron Kaiser is a
hero).
For end users a lot of the value of Mozilla products comes in the form
of the various brands which tell them they're getting a high quality
open source product developed in line with the goals of the Mozilla
Foundation. Mozilla trademarks are not freely licensed. The need to
create/market/etc your own branding serves as another economic
disincentive to forking our code and refusing to contribute back.
> Didn't a similar thing happen in the 90s with BSD and OSX? When Mozilla was created, that whole thing had already happened, so shouldn't they have known this would be a risk? Why wasn't Mozilla just using the GPL from the beginning? What is the advantage of MPL over GPL, given the disadvantage of MPL that I'm talking about?
wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
copyleft at all.
> And what about now, is there any chance of Mozilla switching its stuff to the GPL? Is there any chance of Mozilla strengthening the "share-alike" aspect of the MPL? How difficult would it be to change the license to make it protect open source better? How difficult would it be to switch to GPL? And what needs to happen in order to spur that change? IMO this H5OS stuff sounds like a pretty big deal, and theoretically all of Mozilla's code is vulnerable to that kind of thing, and there could be more similar events in the future. I hope you guys really think about this.
would result in any licensing changes at Mozilla. Licensing is not a
silver bullet, particularly when dealing with organizations based in
parts of the world that are, shall we say, less respectful of IP law.
Ask the linux-sunxi community how effective the GPL has been at
compelling compliance from Allwinner. Ultimately I think this will
turn out to be a relatively minor event, and one that would not have
been prevented by a stronger license anyways.
- Kyle
Mook
Jul 22, 2015, 2:12:56 AM7/22/15
to mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On 18/07/15 12:30 PM, a345923...@gmail.com wrote:
> My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not
> as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ? More
> specifically, why is it that this
> http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/
> was able to happen?
>
> Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source
> FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is
> that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary. So why
> does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
Hi there!
> My understanding is that the MPL is a copyleft license, but it's not
> as strong as the GPL. In what ways exactly does it differ? More
> specifically, why is it that this
> http://linuxgizmos.com/firefox-os-fork-h5os-gets-a-100-million-boost/
> was able to happen?
>
> Aren't the H5OS people essentially leaching off the open source
> FirefoxOS without contributing anything back? My understanding is
> that they plan to make all of their own additions proprietary. So why
> does Mozilla use the MPL if it allows stuff like that to happen?
First, please read khuey's excellent post. That has a more detailed
reply; what I can bring in here is the perspective of somebody who has
worked on two commercial products based on Gecko. This might be
slightly out of date, though.
Just taking Mozilla's code and shipping it isn't going to get any
traction; Mozilla is famous enough that people are going to just grab
the upstream stuff instead, since Mozilla is a more trusted name than
people slightly modifying the code. To actually get enough of a user
base to be commercially viable, people generally go and do things that
the platform doesn't already do. That means it's also not worth keeping
all the other changes to the platform and not push them back upstream,
since that just means more work when you pull down the next release and
have to make everything work again.
Both places I've worked at would strongly prefer putting any code we
write that isn't part of the differentiators upstream, and the parts are
left over are the bits that would be of no interest to Mozilla.
Actually, the typical thing that happens is that we would try to push
things up, and nobody wants it, instead of upstream wanting things we
would not want to give away. Mozilla (as the collective of people that
check into mozilla-central) just isn't very interested things that are
named Firefox, unfortunately.
I have heard that putting changes into Rust/Servo is easier (Samsung
being the primary example here), and my understanding is that FirefoxOS
manages this somewhat as well (Telenor had done some work there, I believe).
--
Mook
Gervase Markham
Jul 23, 2015, 5:36:26 AM7/23/15
to Kyle Huey, a345923...@gmail.com
Kyle's answers are excellent. Just a correction:
On 22/07/15 00:00, Kyle Huey wrote:
> Mozilla was created with a less restrictive license because Netscape
> wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
> proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
> copyleft at all.
The NPL had the same copyleft terms as Mozilla, but gave Netscape some
special rights to NPLed code.
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/NPL/1.1/
Gerv
On 22/07/15 00:00, Kyle Huey wrote:
> Mozilla was created with a less restrictive license because Netscape
> wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
> proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
> copyleft at all.
special rights to NPLed code.
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/NPL/1.1/
Gerv
Kyle Huey
Jul 23, 2015, 9:00:57 AM7/23/15
to Gervase Markham, a345923...@gmail.com, mozilla-g...@lists.mozilla.org
On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> Kyle's answers are excellent. Just a correction:
>
> On 22/07/15 00:00, Kyle Huey wrote:
> Kyle's answers are excellent. Just a correction:
>
> On 22/07/15 00:00, Kyle Huey wrote:
>> Mozilla was created with a less restrictive license because Netscape
>> wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
>> proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
>> copyleft at all.
>
>> wanted to be able to incorporate open source Mozilla code into its
>> proprietary products. The original Netscape Public License had no
>> copyleft at all.
>
> The NPL had the same copyleft terms as Mozilla, but gave Netscape some
> special rights to NPLed code.
> https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/NPL/1.1/
>
> Gerv
>
Thanks. This is what happens when I speak to things that occurred
> special rights to NPLed code.
> https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/NPL/1.1/
>
> Gerv
>
when I was 8 :D
- Kyle
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