Terms
The MPL has been approved as both a free software license (albeit one with a weak copyleft) by the Free Software Foundation and an open-source software license by the Open Source Initiative. The MPL allows covered source code to be mixed with other files under a different, even proprietary license. However, code files licensed under the MPL must remain under the MPL and freely available in source form. This makes the MPL a compromise between the MIT or BSD licenses, which permit all derived works to be relicensed as proprietary, and the GPL, which requires the whole of a derived work, even new components, to remain under the GPL. By allowing proprietary modules in derived projects while requiring core files to remain open source, the MPL is designed to motivate both businesses and the open-source community to help develop core software.
The rights granted by the Mozilla Public License are primarily defined as passing from "contributors," who create or modify source code, to the licensee. In the absence of patents, MPL-licensed code can be freely used, altered, and redistributed. Versions with patented code can still be used, transferred, and even sold, but cannot be altered without special permission. In addition, the MPL does not grant the licensee any rights to a contributor's trademarks.
To fulfill the terms of the MPL, the licensee must meet certain "responsibilities," mostly concerning the distribution of licensed software. The licensee must ensure access to or provide all source code files covered by the MPL, even if the software is offered as an executable or combined with other code under a proprietary license. The one exception to covered files remaining under the MPL occurs when they are combined with code under the GPL, Lesser GPL (LGPL), or Affero GPL (AGPL). In this case, the creator of the combined software can choose to provide the entire work under the stricter GPL-based licenses.
Read more about this topic: Mozilla Public License
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