Mozilla to redraft open source licence

Mozilla is set to redraft its open source licence in a bid to "modernise, maintain, and simplify" the document.

The Mozilla Public Licence (MPL) was built from the Netscape Public Licence and included features of both the BSD License and GNU General Public Licence.

Its revision, going from MPL 1.1 to what the company thinks will be MPL 2.0, was confirmed yesterday on the organisation's website.

"We may make some policy changes (such as becoming compatible with Apache or adjusting our patent license grant) but we do not plan to make major changes, like switching licences or altering the scope of our copyleft requirements," Mozilla said on its website.

It is asking for feedback from members of the community to see what open source users think needs changing although Mitchell Baker, Mozilla chairperson and original author of the licence, will lead the updating project.

A first draft of changes is set to be released soon and will be followed up by further debates and discussions within the communities to get the final version right.

This version is expected by the end of 2010.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.