MPL and Source Code

[Craig Southeren]

On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:18:34 -0700
Josh Triplett <josh at freedesktop.org> wrote:

..deleted

> > 
> > The MPL states 12 months, and the GPL had three years (for certain
> > methods of distribution) but I don't know of any license that required
> > 100 years. I agree that any such period of time would be unfairly
> > onerous.
> 
> Quantitative points rarely make the difference between free and
> non-free.  If requiring source 100 years after you stop providing the
> binary would clearly classify a license as non-free, then generally so
> would 3 years or 1 year.

I guess it depends on your definition of free. But that's a whole
different argument :)

..deleted

> > Is there any disagreement as to whether this would apply?
> 
> I think the Debian CVS/SVN server meets the definition and would most
> likely satisfy the license, though it could potentially cause problems
> for our mirror operators.  

I don't see why.

> But the question of whether Debian can
> satisfy the license stands completely independent of whether Debian
> considers the license Free.  We can satisfy the licenses of every piece
> of software in non-free, or we couldn't legally distribute them.

Make sense.

> I think you have successfully argued that we can satisfy this
> requirement of the license, and thus we could probably legally
> distribute MPLed software; however, distributability only gets you as
> far as the non-free archive.

Given that the Debian definition of free basically means "GPL compatible",
I never really expected anything else :)

   Craig

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