Komodo in violation of Mozilla Public License?

[Ron Stephens]

Please keep up the good work. I am open source and free software advocate who
loves ActiveState's products and wish them to make a lot of money. Please do
not criticize ActiveState. They are doing so much good for Python !!!! To
criticize them is most ungrateful and not wise at all, IMHO

David Ascher wrote:

> Tim Churches wrote:
> >
> > Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:
> > >
> > > ActiveState Corporation <http://activestate.com/> produces an
> > > multi-language/multi-platform IDE called Komodo, which is based on the
> > > Mozilla framework.  It is a nice product, overall, based on my tests of
> > > the (free) betas.  In the last week, ActiveState has released Komodo
> > > 1.0, with a dramatically changed (commercial, for-money, and by
> > > subscription) license.  In particular, their Release Notes
> > > <http://activestate.com/ASPN/Reference/Products/Komodo/relnotes.html>
> > > state that:
> > >
> > >   Educational license - Komodo is free for educational and
> > >     NON-COMMERCIAL purposes.  If you're using Komodo to learn to
> > >     program, this is probably the one for you.
> > >   Evaluation license - Komodo is free for evaluation purposes, to test
> > >     Komodo's features for a short time before full deployment.
> > >   Commercial license - Any other use of Komodo must be under the
> > >     commercial license.  This gives you full access to regular software
> > >     updates and the full power of integration with the Knowledge
> > >     Center.
> > >
> > > While IANAL, and all that... doesn't this look like an awfully blatant
> > > violation of the Mozilla Public License (which covers the codebase in
> > > Komodo)?!
> > >
> > > Yours, Lulu...
> >
> > Dear Lulu,
> >
> > The same unlovely thought occured to me, as I'm sure it did to many
> > others. But then I thought, surely a relatively large (in free
> > software/open source terms), well-established firm like ActiveState
> > wouldn't make a fundamental **legal** mistake like violating the letter
> > of the Mozilla licensing agreement, so I suspect that they are using
> > some obscure loophole in the license or have done a deal with AOL or
> > whoever owns the copyright to the Mozilla codebase to re-license it on a
> > commercial basis. It would be great if erstwhile free software/open
> > source Python hero David Ascher could enlighten us regarding this issue.
>
> Lots of issues here.  I'll try to adress them in turn, and not be too
> long-winded.
>
>   The MPL license.  My understanding of the MPL is that we are not in
> violation of any of its terms.  Komodo is not a "new version" of Mozilla
> (see below), and all the changes that we have made to Mozilla have been
> submitted back to mozilla.org (mostly minor bug fixes).  We have made
> one _major_ addition to Mozilla, and that is the PyXPCOM bindings.
> Those were submitted to mozilla.org under the MPL, something which we
> were not required to do but wanted to do to further Mozilla
> development.  We are active contributors and participants in the Mozilla
> effort.  I'll check with Mitchell Baker, chief lizard wrangler at
> Mozilla.org, and get back to the list on this issue.
>
>     Komodo is not a "fork" of Mozilla but an application based on top of
> Mozilla, just like it is an application based on top of Python.  There
> are no restrictions (to my knowledge!) in the Mozilla or Python licenses
> with regards to the terms under which such applications can be
> distributed.  An extreme version of this is that a web page viewed with
> Mozilla is, technically, very similar to Komodo ('rendered XUL').  Ours
> just happens to be a useful web page =).  We distribute Mozilla as part
> of Komodo as a convenience to our customers.  When Mozilla reaches
> stability and ubiquity, we will consider removing the "pre-built"
> Mozilla and have Komodo just layer on top of existing Mozilla
> installations if that is a change our customers ask for.  Just to
> emphasize it -- The level of code-sharing between "Komodo" and "Mozilla"
> is the same as the level of code-sharing between "eGroups" and "Python"
> (probably less -- we don't use coroutines =).
>
>    Mozilla's license was crafted precisely to let all kinds of people
> and organizations build all kinds of software with it.  As an example,
> IBM recently released their Web Browser for OS/2, which is, like Komodo,
> available as part of a for-fee subscription.  Intel, Nokia and others
> are building Mozilla-based tools which they have (to my knowledge!) no
> intention of releasing.  We did not "strike a deal" with anyone
> regarding licensing of Mozilla -- we are just participants in the
> Mozilla effort much like hundreds of others.
>
>    Komodo is not Open Source or Free Software, true.  It is a little
> confusing to some, but ActiveState's business model is mixed.  We do
> some open source work, such as the ports of Python and Perl to Itanium,
> PyXPCOM, the Python/Perl bridge for Zope, the Python for .NET project,
> etc., as well as commercial work, such as Komodo and Visual Python.
> Just FYI, the most interesting parts of Komodo (the Python, XUL and
> JavaScript code) are not obscured in any way, and we do encourage people
> to learn how Mozilla works by looking at Komodo's source code.  (We may
> "zip" them up in later releases as an optimization, but they'll still be
> available for review.)
>
>    Re: educational vs. non-educational licenses.  We believe that by
> making what we consider to be useful tools like Komodo available to
> students and educators, we can help improve the quality of the
> educational process in the computing sciences.  This is important to us
> as a company, and is a goal that we are pursuing in various wasy.  We
> are always looking for ways to make CP4E a possibility, even though its
> federal funding sources have dried up.
>
>    On the subject of whether Komodo "should", in a moral sense, be
> FSF-style free or not, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.
> You called me (I presume ironically) "free software/open source Python
> hero David Ascher".  I think some open source software is great.  I
> think some free software is great.  I also think that some closed-source
> software is great.  I tend to judge software based on whether the
> software meets the user's needs, and "fits" the user.  For example, the
> computer games I buy for my kid are well designed, entertain and educate
> him, and their prices are low compared to the value they give me.  I'm
> glad to pay for such software, as I know that I encourage the production
> of more software that I consider to be of high quality.  It is my hope
> and belief that our customers will feel the same way about Komodo.  The
> feedback we get seems to indicate that they value the feature-richness,
> the attention to QA, and even the nice graphics and "marketing".
>
>     For what it's worth, I think I understand the FSF point of view, and
> I respect it, but I do not share it.  The world is big enough for both
> approaches, methinks.
>
>     I apologize for the long post, but there were a lot of issues to
> cover.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David Ascher
> Komodo Tech Lead
> ActiveState