Google reverses "absurd" Mozilla code ban

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 29 Aug 2008 at 11:23

Google has reversed its decision to ban projects created under the Mozilla Public License from being hosted on its Google Code site.

The web giant banned the license in August, claiming it wanted to "make a statement against open-source license proliferation" which it blamed for hindering the cross pollination of code from one project to another. It also suggested that too often licenses were being created for features already included in other projects, leading to unnecessary duplication and spiraling legal costs.

However, speaking on Google's blog, Chris DiBona of the company's open-source team, claims the company has changed its mind when it comes to supporting popular licenses, such as the MPL and Eclipse Popular License, even if they are duplicative.

"Since we started hosting projects, we've been petitioned by the Eclipse Foundation (of which Google is a member) and its community of developers to include the EPL as an option for new projects," says DiBona. "We've resisted until now as we felt that the features of the EPL were not unique enough to justify its inclusion. This hasn't changed, but how we think about licenses is getting a bit more nuanced.

"Eclipse is an important, lively and healthy project with an enormous plug-in and developer community that uses an otherwise duplicative license. They aren't interested in using the BSD or other open-source licenses that are readily combinable with EPL code. We have decided that after nearly two years of operation, that it was time to add the EPL and serve these open-source developers."

DiBona went on to describe its decision to ban the MPL as "absurd", citing the community's huge popularity.

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