UXP and allied Project Contributors.. Your rights are being violated along with the MPL.

[Moonchild]

I'm posting this here because anywhere else outside the forum it'll just be buried or downvoted into oblivion so it's never seen/heard.

My problem is not with MyPal (regardless of our general opinion that it's a really really bad idea the way it's done), it is with not following the license and flaunting our rights. I even stated as much in r/opensource in response to the FUD posted there but it was immediately downvoted out of sight by the board warriors who are against us. Any similar project to MyPal can easily continue through someone else who does adhere to the MPL. The point of rescinding Feodor's rights has been simply and solely because he broke with the license twice for the same reason, in the same context, and clearly had no intention of following the principles of Open Source licensing, abusing the freedoms given under the license. He may not have been aware the first time, but he definitely was after that, and chose to still do it again. So for that reason he's out of the game and can no longer play. And that is all there is to it from our side.

Pale Moon, UXP, Basilisk and everything else in our corner is released under the MPL (and not BSD/MIT or PD) for a reason. We chose this project. We chose to work under the MPL. So did Feodor. If you choose to work within the confines of a license then you must follow it. You can't work under such a license and ignore "inconvenient" clauses when someone puts them into effect (like terminating a grant). That's not how that works.

There wouldn't even have been much of a problem if there was a normal response from Feodor working through the issues, since just like the FSF, all we want is for people to be compliant with the license and we're not looking for monetary compensation or what not. We just want people to do the right thing so everyone can work together positively, regardless of personal opinions about projects or people.
However, it was rapidly escalated by Feodor and his cronies to become a matter of war and threatening the very fabric of the MPL, our project, our lives, our livelihood and even Open Source/FOSS as a whole by attacking the validity of the core of Open Source licensing. The stakes have gotten high due to their response. Even with all that going on, Tobin still offered a compromise to give Feodor a way out of his own non-compliance, but that was rapidly labeled as a "trap" without explaining howso, and buried. People in "Feodor's camp" wanted the escalation, they wanted this war, they didn't hold back and tried to deplatform the very project they rely on for anything (MyPal wouldn't exist without our efforts, and likely wouldn't have much of a future without our continued work) -- meaning they just wanted to be destructive and see all of it fail on the short to medium term. I can't help but wonder what the big picture reasons for this are.

We don't want to have to deal with this and we simply want that people respect our work and the very license they choose to work under. I'd much rather further UXP than spending already over a week with stress dealing with all this and not having the energy to do anything else.
It's also demotivational, as you may imagine, and it has drastically lowered the value of Open Source as a whole in many of my peers seeing this go down the way it has. I was honestly shocked to see the responses on r/opensource on Reddit after my post giving a straight-up recount and correct explanation of the situation. Clearly, the crowd there doesn't care about Open Source and just care about taking what isn't theirs regardless if they are following the rules of the game or not...

Unlike how this is somehow twisted around by some people, our main focus is on our own development and our goals do not include any other projects or trying to "shut down" anyone. However, we will defend our rights and expect license compliance from anyone using our code, just like the rest of all Open Source developers do.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I think a tl;dr in the form of something I posted in other thread is warranted.

[...] now that this horseshit has gone outside the forum communities and one github repo.. It is gonna get a lot harder from here on.

The majority of what USED to be known as the open source community are now starting to come after me and by extension all of us.. Including each of you. It is no longer contained within the scope of the Mozillasphere and disparate small time groups with small minds. This struggle has gone to the next level because I defended the rights of contributors under the terms of the Mozilla Public License including my own. I have pissed off a much broader audience and they will be coming. The war has gotten a whole lot bigger for all those concerned.

[Sob__]

Don't hate me for asking, but don't you think that average person could see your approach as unnecessarily rigid and overreacting? There's a difference between calculated decision and negligence. If someone builds up on your MPL-licensed code and refuses to share theirs, almost everyone will root for you, if you decide to go get the bastard.

Here's a guy who makes browser for few weirdos stuck with XP, and righly assumes that almost nobody cares about source. If by miracle someone does, they can ask and they'll get it. It may be wrong, but it's very different from the first case, it just makes the process a little inconvenient. If you'd nag him about it, it would be perfectly fine. After all, he should do it right. He already did it once, meaning that he fixed it, so whether he forgot or "forgot" since then, most likely he would fix it again and everyone could be happy.

But jumping right to "you already didn't properly release the source once, now it's second and last strike, so to hell with you and your project", it's not that difficult to see it as overreaction, is it? It doesn't excuse the behaviour of some people who then rushed to "save" the guy. And it's not that you wouldn't have right to do it this way. But it seems so unnecessary. And worse, it was really predictable what would follow.

[ron_1]

But jumping right to "you already didn't properly release the source once, now it's second and last strike, so to hell with you and your project", it's not that difficult to see it as overreaction, is it? It doesn't excuse the behaviour of some people who then rushed to "save" the guy. And it's not that you wouldn't have right to do it this way. But it seems so unnecessary. And worse, it was really predictable what would follow.

I don't think it was an overreaction at all. The license is a legal contract, no? Screwing up once is forgivable, screwing up twice is deliberate. Or if not, then it's total negligence, and I wouldn't want to run any software/app from someone who's negligent. That's my .02¢.

[WiseWolf]

From what I recall, he did it multiple times, otherwise it would be an overreaction.

I think that Moonchild was being more then fair here since that's the case.

Also, I hope you are wrong Tobin about what is about to happen.

That sounds dreadful.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

He has violated the MPL twice and him and his friends have been performing other acts which are all documented that show good faith isn't on the agenda. Just the way he acts for a single issue is ridiculous. The fact his supporters are so crazed and violent that they wish death upon me and others agree is enough in its self to actually justify using the word Toxic in all its traditional connotations to describe them.

If you think I am bad.. Go checkout what they are doing and saying and have been for years.

[jobbautista9]

Let's not forget that Feodor said in 2019 that he will fix Centaury into compliance the next day after he fixes Mypal. He didn't. So I'm leaning more towards deliberate violation in light of this comment.

[576tomoyo]

I honestly had no idea Feodor2 was pulling this to be honest. I guess this is something to be expected considering he is supposedly Russian (though forum IP logs over at eclipse.cx say he's Ukrainian...) - don't expect him to be arrested for anything like this if he's in a country like those, reputed for cybercrime.

For reference, I was the ex-admin from the aforementioned board (the owner of which has an account here too, see R3n) who negotiated the idea of having a support forum on that site for Mypal so that people didn't constantly keep coming over here for support that they wouldn't be able to receive - so essentially, I was doing you guys a favour. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a fraud too, as he never really bothered much with it nor did he even bother to link it on his own Git repository or in the software at any given point of time.

While I may have disagreed with the rather blunt/brash attitude you guys show obviously inexperienced users and some other things that have happened in the past, this is one time I'm certainly gonna side with you and say that dodging repeated requests to fix branding issues mentioned both by the surrounding circle AND upstream developers while also refusing to provide source code as per the MPL is just asking to have the code taken down for a licence violation.

Glad I got to read your side of the story here... would be somewhat amusing if a wordfilter was applied to the word "Mypal" changing it to "Feodor2's criminal hackjob" or something in any case. To be honest, the XP hackjobs will go nowhere anyway - while Pale Moon is admittedly a godsend for optimisation on older systems due to its reliance on a more lean/lightweight Mozilla Firefox codebase that predates the bloat thrown in around version 45 or so (though wasn't the Goanna codebase reset and reforked from the v52 branch at some point?), it seems like anything involving Windows 2000/XP/Longhorn/Vista simply derides itself into Twitter-tier cancel culture level drama... unsurprising, considering the amount of childish twats in the communities in question. (I'm actually glad I have no staff involvement on eclipse.cx anymore as I was sick of getting into petty fights with the other staffers - though that seems to have calmed down slince the circle split, thankfully.)

-576tomoyo

[New Tobin Paradigm]

He did mention centaury then but i completely overlooked it. I am not sure I knew what he was referring to. There is a mention of it on a thread on here that I didn't participate in so I guess I never payed much nevermind to the name. So I could have terminated his grant years ago because he never bothered to sort centaury.

Son of a bitch. Was slightly less dangerous of an environment back then. Talk about missed opportunities.

[Moonchild]

By the way, the promised contributor's guide to the MPL is now live at http://developer.palemoon.org/docs/mpl20-guide/

[Sob__]

The license is a legal contract, no? Screwing up once is forgivable, screwing up twice is deliberate.

Well, yes. But it simplifies it a little too much. If someone takes MPL-licensed code as base for something, releases binary form, and either:

a) denies there's any MPL code in it
b) admits the code is there, but explicitly refuses to share it with anyone - if someone asks for it, the answer will be "no"
c) doesn't release the code for whatever reason (laziness, thinking that nobody is interested, ...), but does so if someone asks for it
d) releases the source in wrong form (patches against who knows what, disorganized repo where it's not clear what exactly was used to build each version, ...)

You can lump it all together, say that it wasn't right according to letter of license and be done with it. But it's not really the same, so that approach doesn't seem fair.

Another factor is the damage caused by this. Some could say that there can hardly be any, since the authors basically gave the source to anyone to do anything they want with it (according to license they really didn't, but since anyone can see it...). I wouldn't go with that, but it can be a little problematic. In any case, it's likely that your feelings about it, as author of the code, will be different based on who does it. If it's big successful project, then it's clearly very unfair, if the code helped them to succeed. But if it's something small that you additionally see as useless hackjob with no value, should it really bother you that much? Is anyone missing anything when such code isn't served to everyone on silver platter (and again, it's not like it's completely unavailable if someone is interested)? I'd say that it's not worth to waste time on it, but of course it's just me.

If you think I am bad.. Go checkout what they are doing and saying and have been for years.

I can't choose simple good or bad. You have some history with them, don't like some things about them, they don't like some things about you, nobody knows all the details, what's reasonable, what's based on some misunderstanding, etc. I know I see pretty strong "the whole world is against us" vibe around here, which is suspicious, because the whole world usually doesn't give a damn about anything. The XP masochists are in a way similar, the whole world is against them too, Microsoft axed their perfectly good system for no reason, software manufacturers don't care about them anymore either, now even evil Tobin takes one of their toys away. Only you know your real reasons, if it's just because you feel so strongly about MPL, or it's more about smashing some annoying disrecpecful insect, or two birds with one stone, ... I'm not taking sides, I'm just questioning whether this helps anyone.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Why can't it be smashing an annoying disrespectful insect because I feel strongly about the MPL?

[Moonchild]

d) releases the source in wrong form (patches against who knows what, disorganized repo where it's not clear what exactly was used to build each version, ...)

This is pretty close to what happened with Centaury. When asked for the source code to a specific version, the only answer (and only when pressured to provide that information, which is already against the license) was "Go to a different repo and make a best guess based on release date of the binary which state you need to check out". So lump that together with the others under the label of "blatant violation according to the letter of the license".

[576tomoyo]

d) releases the source in wrong form (patches against who knows what, disorganized repo where it's not clear what exactly was used to build each version, ...)

This is pretty close to what happened with Centaury. When asked for the source code to a specific version, the only answer (and only when pressured to provide that information, which is already against the license) was "Go to a different repo and make a best guess based on release date of the binary which state you need to check out". So lump that together with the others under the label of "blatant violation according to the letter of the license".

That just feels like a lazy excuse to hide stolen source code in the binaries from the public eye, to be honest...

[Moonraker]

Not being conversant with laws and regulations surrounding this...can these sort of violations actually be taken to a court/tribunal.?

[Moonchild]

Not being conversant with laws and regulations surrounding this...can these sort of violations actually be taken to a court/tribunal.?

Absolutely. There wouldn't be much point in having a legally binding license if they couldn't!

[vannilla]

Not being conversant with laws and regulations surrounding this...can these sort of violations actually be taken to a court/tribunal.?

Yes, they can. Im fairly certain the FSF did bring the GPL to court, so there are precedents of "copyleft licenses" being defended in an official place. The MPL isn't any less "valid" than the GPL in this regard, especially as, like the GPL, the MPL was written by people who actually studied the law.

[Sob__]

@New Tobin Paradigm: It can be anything you want it to be. I just assumed that "everyone united against you" (even though it's doubtful) is not something you enjoy (most people wouldn't), so it would be more beneficial to let things cool down, look for allies, try to pick battles where winning will bring you some significant advantage, that general direction. Crushing someone insignificant, with no clear benefit for you, but knowing that it will stir things up and "win" you even more enemies, ... I don't get it. Even if you're right, it's not everything when dealing with people.

@Moonchild: Could it be that the answer had something to do with who was asking? You know, with the preexisting animosity, expecting the asking person to have no genuine interest in it, ... I'm not saying that it would be good excuse, not at all. In fact, if it was the case, it was really dumb, because if I'm expecting that someone is looking for reasons to go after me, I should not give them any. But I can still see a little difference from the case when violating license is "part of business plan".

[Moonchild]

Could it be that the answer had something to do with who was asking?

I honestly don't understand what you mean. The answer was simply trying to dodge the fact that he was in violation of the license (and he knew it) just like the almost endless other ways he tried to dodge both the MPL terms and the demands to be compliant with it. Read the github issue, see how time after time he (and his clique) tried finding loopholes around Tobin retracting his grant to Feodor. Feodor simply wanted to have it all as public domain to do with as he pleased just because he had access to it. And conveniently ignore the clauses of the MPL he didn't like.

As far as the "part of a business plan"... do you really think any of us "going after someone" is part of the "business plan" here? Well I surely hope not, the mere notion is stupid. But we will demand that people stick to the license they work under, because they must.

[moonslayer]

I think Tobin's cease and desist notice to Feodor2 was uncalled for.
And please don't censor this, there is no reason for that either!