Re: [gedit-list] Fix Bug 342918 and even support universal encoding detection

[Doug Blank <doug blank gmail com>]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Jesse van den Kieboom
<jessevdk gnome org> wrote:

> For one, is the MPL compatible with GPL?

Unfortunately, we need to be conversant with these licensing issues.

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/FAQ.html says:

"The MPL fills a useful space in the spectrum of free and open source
software licenses, sitting between the Apache license, which does not
require modifications to be shared, and the GNU family of licenses,
which requires modifications to be shared under a much broader set of
circumstances than the MPL."

But it can be used if made into a "larger work":

"Q14: May I combine MPL-licensed code and (L)GPL-licensed code in the
same executable program?

Yes, by creating a "Larger Work" under the terms of Section 3.3. In
particular, three requirements must be met:

1. The software must not be “Incompatible With Secondary Licenses.”
Software can become “Incompatible With Secondary Licenses” in one of
two ways: the original author marks it as such by adding the file
header in Exhibit B, or the original author published the software
under MPL 1.1 and did not dual- or tri-license the code with the
(L)GPL.

2. The Larger Work must be "a combination of Covered Software with a
work governed by one or more Secondary Licenses." So you can't just
say "I really prefer (L)GPL" - you must have a need to combine with
another, existing GPL work. (This is different from a traditional
dual-license, which does not require you to combine, and instead
allows you to simply say "I've decided to be GPL-only.")

3. You must "additionally distribute" under (L)GPL. In other words,
you must make the MPL-licensed source code available to your
recipients under both MPL and (L)GPL. Someone downstream from your
recipients can then take under (L)GPL-only or MPL-only. This is
different from a traditional dual-license, which never requires
publication under both licenses, and so always gives you the option of
releasing incompatibly-licensed code.

No GPL-compatible license can perfectly preserve the original author's
ability to reuse downstream derivatives, but the last two restrictions
serve to increase the probability that such reuse can occur in the
broadest possible set of circumstances."

It may be that gedit will want to look for another library which is
more in line with the GPL.

-Doug