The license appeals to me as a good middle ground between GPL and MIT but I am unable to find a high quality debate about its merits or flaws on HN or anywhere else for that matter.
Ask HN: Why is there so little discussion of the MPL 2.0 license on HN?
1–4 of 4 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is there so little discussion of the MPL 2.0 license on HN?
#2It isn't a middle ground; it's a copyleft, like the GPL. Distribution of executables requires source code.
It's hard to imagine what a middle ground between GPL and MIT would look like, because the key difference (the requirement that modifications must be shared in source code form) is a yes-no proposition.
(One idea is a license which allows redistribution without source code for some limited time period, after which the source must be provided to the users.)
Re: Ask HN: Why is there so little discussion of the MPL 2.0 license on HN?
#3It isn't a middle ground; it's a copyleft, like the GPL. Distribution of executables requires source code. It's hard to imagine what a middle ground between GPL and MIT would look like, because the key difference (the requirement that modifications must be shared in source code form) is a yes-no proposition. (One idea is a license which allows redistribution without source code for some limited time period, after whi…
It is a middle ground of sorts for certain types of situations.
It requires your modifications of MPL-licensed code to be released publicly if you distribute your product or service outside your company.
However, if your changes to MPL-licensed code are only distributed inside your company, you do not need to release those changes publicly.
The MPL 2.0 FAQ states:
> "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."
The above taken from: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/
Like other copyleft licenses, the license text isn't particularly easy to read as the lengthy FAQ above attests.
Re: Ask HN: Why is there so little discussion of the MPL 2.0 license on HN?
#4It isn't a middle ground; it's a copyleft, like the GPL. Distribution of executables requires source code. It's hard to imagine what a middle ground between GPL and MIT would look like, because the key difference (the requirement that modifications must be shared in source code form) is a yes-no proposition. (One idea is a license which allows redistribution without source code for some limited time period, after whi…
The fact that you can’t distribute a GPL/non-GPL amalgam while you can distribute a MIT/non-MIT one also is a key difference.
Along that dimension, one can sees GPLv2 and LGPL as middle grounds between MIT and GPLv3.