Licensing clarification

[LindaPeterson8x]

I like this browser and especially like its continued support for what the popular browsers are dropping in favour of mobile phones, namely NPAPI support.

We currently provide a web browser specially designed to protect web media and of late some clients have begged for HTML5 support. So we need to rebuild and it does not look promising to continue with Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) due their dropping NPAPI, especially when CEF has a problem with HTML5 video licensing/codecs anyway.

I have some developers offering to build in Chromium but it will be a choice of either using Chromium 44 to support NPAPI or use a later version and try to interface NPAPI support through PPAPI.

Now, I do like what Pale Moon has to offer but I suspect that licensing may be a problem, because I am getting the impression that whatever I build Pale Moon resources into has to be made available as source code? Which means that all of our own developments become open-source, or does that just apply to the nobbled, stripped down browser running behind our own gui?

[Moonchild]

Unlike some other Open Source licenses that try to absorb any larger work into its licensing model (like the GPL), the Mozilla Public License 2.0 which Pale Moon is licensed under allows for use of its code and executable forms in larger works without requiring the larger works to be licensed the same.

Please see the MPL 2.0, section 3.3:

3.3. Distribution of a Larger Work

You may create and distribute a Larger Work under terms of Your choice, provided that You also comply with the requirements of this License for the Covered Software. If the Larger Work is a combination of Covered Software with a work governed by one or more Secondary Licenses, and the Covered Software is not Incompatible With Secondary Licenses, this License permits You to additionally distribute such Covered Software under the terms of such Secondary License(s), so that the recipient of the Larger Work may, at their option, further distribute the Covered Software under the terms of either this License or such Secondary License(s).

Your responsibilities do include publishing any changes to the browser code you make as part of your effort under the MPL 2.0:

3.1. Distribution of Source Form

All distribution of Covered Software in Source Code Form, including any Modifications that You create or to which You contribute, must be under the terms of this License. You must inform recipients that the Source Code Form of the Covered Software is governed by the terms of this License, and how they can obtain a copy of this License. You may not attempt to alter or restrict the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form.

However this does not include code involved in other components of a larger work.

Regardless of this, the Pale Moon branding is not covered by the MPL 2.0, and you may not use it without explicit permission or exemption. If I understand correctly you want to use the browser code as a back-end only and will be using your own branding for the end result, so this should not be a problem.

So, in short:

• You can use the Pale Moon code in modified or unmodified form as part of a larger work.
• Any changes you make to the browser and platform code adopted from us must be published in Source Code form under the MPL 2.0
• Any code you provide that is not part of the browser, either your own GUI "wrapped around" the browser or any NPAPI plugin code you provide that is separate from the browser, can be under any license you choose, including closed source/proprietary licenses.
• You may not use Pale Moon official branding for the resulting product except with express prior permission.
• If you want to use officially-branded Pale Moon binaries (executable form) for this purpose, please be aware of our binary redistribution license which applies in that case. In other cases, unbranded or rebranded versions of the modified browser are fine to use.

Of course we would appreciate it if you make mention that you are using Pale Moon or UXP to base your product on as a matter of crediting us, but it's not strictly required.