License Policy/Mozilla Project Licensing
This page is a quick survey of the copyright licenses used for code created by different Mozilla projects.
It's not complete; there are a load of website projects missing, most of which I suspect are 3-clause BSD because Playdoh is. We do so many of those I can't keep track.
Projects And Their Licenses
| Project Name | License |
|---|---|
| Firefox | MPL 2 |
| Thunderbird | MPL 2 |
| SeaMonkey | MPL 2 |
| Camino | MPL 2 |
| B2G Platform | MPL 2 |
| NSS | MPL 2 |
| NSPR | MPL 2 |
| Fennec | MPL 2 |
| Lightning | MPL 2 |
| Chatzilla | MPL 2 |
| Venkman | MPL 2 |
| DOM Inspector | MPL 2 |
| OrangeFactor | MPL 2 |
| Addon SDK | MPL 2 |
| BzAPI | MPL 2 |
| BrowserID (Persona) | MPL 2 |
| OpenBadges | MPL 2 |
| Rhino | MPL 2 |
| Tamarin | MPL 2 |
| Test Pilot | MPL 2 |
| IonMonkey | MPL 2 |
| Sync | MPL 2 |
| Socorro | MPL 2 |
| Bedrock (new mozilla.org) | MPL 2 |
| MCS (Mozilla Community Sites) | MPL 2 |
| Hackasaurus | MPL 2 |
| Bugzilla | MPL 2 (Incompatible) |
| BrowserQuest | MPL 2 (code) / CC-BY-SA (content) |
| AMO 3.0 (Remora; SVN, obsolete) | MPL 1.1 |
| Playdoh (web framework) | BSD (3-clause) - fwenzel, 2011-01-04 |
| AMO 4.0 (Zamboni) | BSD (3-clause) - see bug 539671; clouserw, 2010-05-10 |
| SUMO (Kitsune) | BSD (3-clause) - see bug 661022; rrosario, 2011-05-31 |
| Mozillians | BSD (3-clause) - see github commit, tofumatt, 2011-09-23 |
| Gladius | BSD (3-clause) - alankligman, 2011-08-14 (not originated at Mozilla) |
| DXR | MIT - humph, 2009-06-27 (not originated at Mozilla) |
| popcorn.js | MIT - Anna Sobiepanek, 2011-02-08 |
| Butter | MIT - Bobby Richter (secretrobotron), 2012-03-01 |
| Shumway | Apache 2.0 |
| Rust | Apache 2.0/MIT |
| pdf.js | Apache 2.0 |
| Gaia | Apache 2.0 |
| Circus | Apache 2.0 |
| MXR | Unlabelled; GPL? (because LXR is) |
| Phonebook (internal) | Unlabelled |
| TBPL | Unlabelled |
| Pancake | Unlabelled ("Undecided", apparently) |
Arguments Deployed for Non-Copyleft Licenses
Zamboni (AMO)
There was a newsgroup discussion. The following arguments were advanced:
- The boilerplate of MPL 1.1 is far too long
- The community webdev are working with (Python) uses BSD
- The MPL's copyleft is not relevant in a website context, where code is not distributed
- Corporate environments avoid copylefted code
clouserw checked in a BSD license file. Gerv objected and said the licensing team felt the core should be MPL, but fixing it dropped off the radar. And then it became a precedent.
Kitsune (SUMO)
"Just copy what zamboni did (BSD?) ?" -- rrosario, 2011-05-31
Mozillians
"Playdoh/webdev projects are BSD-licensed, and no code from Domesday is left over." -- tofumatt, 2011-09-23
Shumway
"[W]e want to keep Shumway BSD to maximize adoption by others." -- agal, 2012-01-08
Rust
Rust did not originate at Mozilla and so is not bound by our licence policy; however, graydon said the following were factors in his decision:
- Corporate wariness of copyleft
- The "per-copy royalty" model is dying out anyway, hence copyleft is less relevant
- Copyleft is appealing, but the fights (data/network effects/privacy) are different now
- It helps make sure Rust has a single reference implementation for a long time, to promote interoperability
DXR
DXR did not originate at Mozilla, and so is not bound by our licence policy; however, humph said:
[Shaver recommended MIT for DXR, and if he had the choice to start over, would use it for Mozilla.] "Since then I have spent a lot of time working with other open web libraries and frameworks, and so many of them use MIT. I've come to the place where I go for MIT by default now. I honestly think that part of it is the simplicity of the license itself--I feel like I understand what it says. I'm also attracted to something that allows commercial uses, so that I can get support from commercial entities."
Developer Opinions
bsmedberg feels that all non-product code should be BSD.