marius popa wrote:

> New parts of firebird could be released with an better open source license
> in the future

What Mozilla has done is to multi-license their code to
avoid fighting about what is the one true open source
license. We can't do that with the engine since any new
license would require permission from Borland to relicense
the parts they contributed. Which permission is very
unlikely to be forthcoming.

The reason we use the IPL or IDPL rather than the better known
MPL is that the MPL gives specific rights to Netscape - including
the right to relicense code. One of the very few points on which
Borland and I agree is that there's no reason to credit Netscape
with developing Firebird or to give them the right to relicense
it. The IPL gives that right to Borland and applies to the code
contributed by Borland. The IDPL leaves the right to relicense
and credit for the development of the code to the initial developer.

There's a comparison between the MPL, IPL, and IDPL here:

http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_ipl_mpl_comparison


We could multi-license new utilities, I suppose, though I really
don't see the purpose.


Regards,


Ann