4 ms·

Why are you thankful for the MPL instead of the LGPL? Is there any advantage to the MPL other than being easier to incorporate MPL code into proprietary softwar

Why are you thankful for the MPL instead of the LGPL? Is there any advantage to the MPL other than being easier to incorporate MPL code into proprietary software?

jillesvangurp 2y ago
Making the software easier to use from a legal point of view was indeed the reason. They explained why they did this here: https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/issues/2376 https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/issues/2376 Bottom line is that their licensing with a static linking exception was kind of weird and creating a lot of issues combining zeromq code even with other open source licenses (like Apache 2.0). Interesting to see how they gathered permission to do this from the developer community. License changes like this are usually hard to realize unless you insist on copyright transfers. But in this case they managed to do it without that. So it was a collective decision. Hard to argue with that.
CJefferson 2y ago
Yes, GPL compatibility -- in particular GPL v2 isn't compatible with LGPL v3, but it is compatible with MPL. Several projects, including some I work on, only found out how much a mess (L)GPL v2 vs v3 is once important developers had passed away, meaning it's very hard to get out of the resulting mess.
joezydeco 2y ago
MPL doesn't have an anti-TiVoization clause. The company I'm working for has a complete ban on (L)GPL3.0 source code.
- josephcsible 2y ago
  Is the ban because your company does TiVoization? If so, then that sounds like the (L)GPL3.0 is working as intended.
  - joezydeco 2y ago
    Yes, and yes. My project is an IoT node that requires secured and auditable software up and down the chain. We can't allow user replacement. We acknowledge that the spirit of LGPL3 is for a reason and it works for a lot of parties, just not us.
    - josephcsible 2y ago
      How does TiVoization make a product any more auditable?

4 ms·

Why are you thankful for the MPL instead of the LGPL? Is there any advantage to the MPL other than being easier to incorporate MPL code into proprietary softwar

by josephcsible 2y ago

Why are you thankful for the MPL instead of the LGPL? Is there any advantage to the MPL other than being easier to incorporate MPL code into proprietary software?

jillesvangurp 2y ago
Making the software easier to use from a legal point of view was indeed the reason. They explained why they did this here: https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/issues/2376 https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/issues/2376 Bottom line is that their licensing with a static linking exception was kind of weird and creating a lot of issues combining zeromq code even with other open source licenses (like Apache 2.0). Interesting to see how they gathered permission to do this from the developer community. License changes like this are usually hard to realize unless you insist on copyright transfers. But in this case they managed to do it without that. So it was a collective decision. Hard to argue with that.
CJefferson 2y ago
Yes, GPL compatibility -- in particular GPL v2 isn't compatible with LGPL v3, but it is compatible with MPL. Several projects, including some I work on, only found out how much a mess (L)GPL v2 vs v3 is once important developers had passed away, meaning it's very hard to get out of the resulting mess.
joezydeco 2y ago
MPL doesn't have an anti-TiVoization clause. The company I'm working for has a complete ban on (L)GPL3.0 source code.
- josephcsible 2y ago
  Is the ban because your company does TiVoization? If so, then that sounds like the (L)GPL3.0 is working as intended.
  - joezydeco 2y ago
    Yes, and yes. My project is an IoT node that requires secured and auditable software up and down the chain. We can't allow user replacement. We acknowledge that the spirit of LGPL3 is for a reason and it works for a lot of parties, just not us.
    - josephcsible 2y ago
      How does TiVoization make a product any more auditable?