Inclusion in Puppylinux distros

[cosine_x]

Hi all,

Found out PaleMoon because it is the default browser Tahrpup 6.0 CE. I'm really enjoying the browser. I want to thank people behind making this browser.

One suggestion:
1. can you provide a package for puppy linux?
2. can you tell distro makers to add palemoon by default?

Once again thanks for reading this and making this browser.

[Moonchild]

Well, considering the distro makers of Tahrpup 6.0 never bothered to contact me about including an officially-branded Pale Moon version as part of their distribution, they are, in fact, not following the Pale Moon redistribution license (unless it is supplied as unaltered source code to be built by the user on their own system). http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml

Could you please let me know what the exact situation is there? is it a copy of the binaries as built by us or is it supplied in source code form for the user?
If it is a redistribution in binary form as part of their distro, can you please tell the distro maintainers to contact me ASAP by e-mail to discuss this?

[cosine_x]

My question about whether you can make package of palemoon? Also if someone uses palemoon in their distro why it be illegal?

[Nigaikaze]

Moonchild, it looks like they're packaging it for their distro. There is a palemoon-24.7.1.pet file available here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pet_packages-tahr/

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Confirmed Repackaging of released binaries for PM4Linux by build id.

Code: Select all

Vendor=Moonchild Productions
Name=Pale Moon
Version=24.7.1
BuildID=20140802173306

[Moonchild]

My question about whether you can make package of palemoon? Also if someone uses palemoon in their distro why it be illegal?

If you just package the binary file with official branding without contacting me first then that is illegal.

Why? Because of the binary redistribution license that is in place to prevent both rogue altered copies and to prevent commercial freeloaders or official inclusion in packages that are considered an affront to the Pale Moon brand or mission.
http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml

5. The binaries are not supplied as an integral part of a commercial/non-commercial software package/larger works ("package"). If you wish to do this, you must contact me beforehand to obtain permission and discuss terms. Inclusion in a package will be subject to an individual agreement (either extemporaneous or legalized) which may or may not involve compensation.

So, if Puppylinux wants to continue distributing official Pale Moon binaries, they should contact me - I don't see any harm in granting permission, but it's a simple step they and any other maintainers should take before just packaging the binaries in their product.
I may make the license more lenient towards free Linux distributions in the future, but this is where it stands right now.

See also: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2660
Since PuppyLinux is not in the (still very short) list there, it would have been an indication that they couldn't/shouldn't just include it with their distro
Let the PuppyLinux maintainers contact me to straighten this out, please.

[cosine_x]

You all misunderstand my post. I request you to make .pet packages, for now only options is to download palemoon archive or palemoon installer. But regarding legal problems, is palemoon open source but non-free (as in sppech) software?

[Moonchild]

See nigaikaze's post:

There is a palemoon-24.7.1.pet file available

So it's already been done. But they should have contacted me before doing this and redistributing Pale Moon this way.
This has nothing to do with "free speech" and suggesting as much is silly.

Pale Moon is licensed as follows:
The source is Open Source under the MPL 2.0
The official branding (name, logo) is protected under copyright (same as Firefox) and cannot just be used by anyone without permission.
The (officially-branded) binaries are licensed under the proprietary Pale Moon redistribution license. This is what PuppyLinux used for redistribution in their distro and as such they have to abide by the redist license (since including it in their distro is including it in a larger work, they need to ask permission).

[cosine_x]

I very much aware of old pet package but can you please make new pet package on regular basis? Those pets are maintained by puppylinux community, not regularly updated, very hard to find etc.

You people discuss legal aspect of palemoon in puppy, but thats offtopic. Regarding 'free', the sentence 'free as in speech, not as in beer' commonly used to understand difference of 'free' of 'FOSS' and of 'free product' ect. If you people want to discuss legal clauses then please contact them on forum <http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=96178>. But distro makers were thinking to change palemoon with seamonkey, maybe now you force them to change with legal threat.

[x-15a2]

But distro makers were thinking to change palemoon with seamonkey, maybe now you force them to change with legal threat.

It's not a threat, it's just stating that Pale Moon is a legally licensed product and therefore there are certain procedures that need to be followed for the legal distribution of the product. It sounds to me that Moonchild is willing to grant permission, it just needs to be requested. If that pushes someone over the edge to use a different product, then that is better than distributing a product without permission.

[Moonchild]

I've never made .pet packages before. I obviously wasn't aware that .pet packages included in puppylinux were made or the redist issue would have come up before.

The people who made the current .pet package would be responsible for updating them to something more current. That is the distro maintainer's job, not ours. I'm not going to make .pet, .rpm, .deb, .xxx packages for every Linux distro under the sun, because that's not my job

As for permission, X is correct: I don't mind granting permission to Linux distributors if they have the decency to shoot me a message before they do, so I know what Pale Moon is made an integral part of. That's no different than wanting to know that a photograph of you, representing you, is being used in a publication (book, magazine, etc.), and having some control over not having it be included in something you don't agree with.

[south]

Palemoon is not an official part of Puppylinux. Seamonkey and Firefox are.
Puppy users are expected to respect other developers products/rights.
Puppylinux is a do-ocracy since the founder retired, and various people make
packages for themselves and some offer them to the public.
This would be why no-one from Puppy has contacted Moonchild.
Sorry - the pet maker should have contacted you first.

[Moonchild]

I see -- thanks for explaining this. Yes, the .pet maker should have contacted me.

I'll update the license to be more lenient for these kinds of situations when I get some time to work on legal text. For now, consider it a de-facto allowance to continue distributing the .pet - I assume the browser is otherwise unaltered?

[south]

Thanks for that. I believe it is simply packaged as distributed.

[666philb]

Hi Moonchild,

I'm the person responsible for making the puppylinux packages of palemoon, i'm also the sole person responsible for including palemoon in the new tahrpup C.E distibution.

First off i would like to apologise for what must seem like a blatant disregard to your palemoon licensing conditions. It wasn't deliberate, it was just me not reading them through thoroughly enough, i think at the time i read them i got the impression that if i didn't alter or add anything it would be ok, missing 3a (You have re-packed the browser in a different archive format (either common or proprietary)).

The puppy .pet package, (a .pet package is basically a tarball with a MD5sum check, to look inside just rename .pet to .tar.gz and extract) it contains palemoon unaltered, a menu entry with icon and also a launch script . The launch script runs only once and is then deleted, it was designed specifically for tahrpup so that when users first click on the browse icon on the desktop, they get a welcome to puppy info page with instructions on how to get on the internet etc. Next time the browser is launched it is launched directly with all the default palemoon settings and palemoon start page.

Thankyou for allowing the continued distribution of the .pet, and are you happy for me to add the official installer/updater to the package so that people can update it themselves?
(the launch script will be removed as that is supposed to be for tahrpup first run only)

And although belatedly, i would like to ask for your permission to have palemoon as tahrpup C.E's default browser?


my apologies again

phil broughton

[Moonchild]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for getting in touch

Actually, the issue was more for point 5 than for the repackaging (3a), unless I misunderstood how Pale Moon is supplied in Tahrpup (it is considered a base package, right? in that case it would be "an integral part of a larger works" and point 5 applies). In any case, I do understand legalese might be a little difficult to properly read and understand, and easy to overlook some things. I do try to keep it as clear as possible without reducing coverage and keep confusion to a minimum.

5. The binaries are not supplied as an integral part of a commercial/non-commercial software package/larger works ("package"). If you wish to do this, you must contact me beforehand to obtain permission and discuss terms. Inclusion in a package will be subject to an individual agreement (either extemporaneous or legalized) which may or may not involve compensation.

I've spent some time myself to re-write some parts of the license and update it to be more lenient towards alternate non-commercial/community Open Source operating systems (like PuppyLinux) because the last thing I want to do is hamper development and spread of free alternatives like that.
So, as it stands, you're all in the clear under the new version of the license (published today), so apology accepted, permission granted for default browser inclusion and your install script/update script, and please carry on

I'll highlight the most important changes in the license below:

Updated:

3a. You have re-packed the browser in a different archive format (either common or proprietary)
(an exception to this is re-packaging required for specific target operating systems, e.g. rpm, deb, pet)

New clause:

8. An exception applies to point 5 of this license for inclusion of the officially branded binaries in freely available and fully Open Source operating systems, including but not limited to non-commercial variants of Linux, variants of BSD and ReactOS. This exception only applies to unaltered versions of the Pale Moon binaries or officially branded variants specifically built for the target operating system from unaltered sources (including brand-specific configurations like e.g. home page, default search engine). If any of the essential settings of the browser are altered beyond what is strictly needed for providing a working build on the target operating system, the exception in this point does not apply and the license defaults to point 10, instead.

Updated:

10. The only exception to this redistribution policy not otherwise covered in points 7 or 8 is if the repackaged or private build with official branding has been pre-approved by Moonchild for redistribution and is listed on this website as a contributed build. Contributed builds are subject to a screening process, may be accepted or rejected, may be re-screened at a later time, and may be at any time removed, in Moonchild's sole discretion, either with or without stated reason.

12. If you wish to distribute binaries for other platforms built on the Pale Moon source code, you may not use official branding unless these builds have also been approved as a contributed build as per point 10 of this license or if they are exempt under points 7 or 8 of this license. Even so, you obtain no rights to the Pale Moon name or logo, merely the permission to use it for the 3rd party build and only for as long as it is officially endorsed or satisfies the conditions for exemption. In all other cases you must use significantly different branding files/graphics and a significantly different name for the browser.

[666philb]

Thanks Moonchild for your permission to use palemoon as the default browser in tahrpup, it's much appreciated! not only for me but i'm sure also the many users for whom it's become their browser of choice.
Palemoon has become quite a popular browser on the puppy forum due to it's speed and functionality and has been my own personal favourite since discovering it earlier this year.

I think they are worthy changes you've made to the licensing agreement, and in the future i'll definitely be reading agreements a lot more thoroughly

cheers

phil

[peebee]

Hello

Having followed the above discussion I thought that I should mention that in the way that Puppy Linux works, I produce a derivative of TahrPup known as LxPupTahr.

LxPupTahr is built by taking TahrPup in its entirety and adding various elements to implement the LXDE desktop.

LxPupTahr therefore also contains PaleMoon, inherited directly and without any changes from TahrPup.

It would not be surprising that other TahrPup derivatives are produced by others in the future.

Hopefully this is OK.
Cheers
peebee

[Moonchild]

Hi peebee,

Yes, with the changes I've made in the licensing, it is now much more open to free community-driven operating systems and distros than it was before, and you're all fine including Pale Moon this way in any derivative of Tahrpup, as long as you stick to the general rule of thumb you can't alter the browser in any significant way when including it with official branding.

I support all your efforts!

[vicmz]

Hello MoonChild,

How does this affect localized versions of Puppy Linux (editions with a non-English language as system-default)? Since the terms state that altering the browser is not allowed, does it mean that the default language cannot be changed (to Spanish, for example)? Does it mean that the Puppy Linux local homepage cannot be set as the browser homepage by default to guide users (including information about the Palemoon browser)? What about extensions, does it mean that extensions cannot be included by default?

Sorry for the off-topic: Palemoon in English does not recognise keyboard layouts other than English, it only recognises my keyboard layout when I install the Spanish langpack. Other browsers do detect what keyboard layout is set as system-default, so I'm a bit disappointed about this.