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Have You Seen These (Mozilla) Hackers?
Gerv writes: "mozilla.org are in the last stages of the
Mozilla relicensing project (from [MN]PL to a [MN]PL/LGPL/GPL tri-license), but are still looking for a number of Mozilla contributors to ask them for permission to relicense. They want the help of the community in tracking them down. Have you seen these hackers?"
Change the license. When someone sues, you've found them.
1. Walk into a large cubicle farm that has a shitload of people. Has to be a tech company. This trick will work in other types of farms like those at large accounting houses, but we are specifically looking for hackers.
2. Yell "FBI! Everybody stay calm and in your cubicle. We will walk around and ask each one of you in turn some questions. There is nothing to be worried about. So please remain where you are until we speak with you."
3. All the bearded fatguys making a break for the emergency exits and windows (if your not to high up) are hackers. Also investigate the cubicles and look for the ones who will be hiding under desks, wiping harddrives, eating cds, etc.
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Whether they are copyright holders or not may be fuzzy legally, but morally, we think it's only fair to make a good effort to find them before we assess whether we can use their contributions regardless or not.
Whether we can go ahead without their permission does depend on the magnitude of the contribution, but there is no clear delimiter between "allowed" and "not allowed".
Gerv
Maybe this will make some people consider using a simpler, freer license
Those are very loaded words. Not everyone can have maximum freedom.
For example, a user's freedom to do anything they like with the code (a BSD-style license) means they can take away another user's freedom to do the same (close the source.)
On the other hand, a programmer's freedom to keep the code open (GPL license) takes away the user's freedom to close the source.
There is no way everyone can have all possible freedoms, because they are mutually exclusive. Whether you release your stuff under the GPL license or the BSD license depends on whether you think the initial user's freedom, all user's freedoms, or the programmer's freedom should be paramount. All viewpoints are valid.
Mozilla.org wishes to make Mozilla code available to GPLed apps while still keeping copyleft protections at MPL level or better. Hence the relicensing project.
Gerv
Thanks for your concern - actually, we've had such a good response from the close Mozilla community that front-page Slashdot exposure now would be serious overkill.
Gerv
Yes, you can - normally, you'd create a version of the file without their code and tell someone who'd never seen it: "It needs to do X", where X is what the code used to do.
Gerv