Recently, AMO decided that all extensions hosted must have a software license, or the addon cannot be updated.
Being Mozilla, the only licenses available were completely open source software licenses. However, ThunderBrowse is free software, but not open source but most free software licenses were way too limiting or too open.
For example, one of the Microsoft Public licenses applies to C++, C# and Javascript files. It sounds great, until you look further in. One of the requirements is that your software has to run on Windows only and your software cannot be used in a business environment.
This prompted me to write my own license using the W3C License as a template. Nothing has really changed from what I’ve said in the past. ThunderBrowse is free to use but not open source.
The new license can be found here: http://www.thunderbrowse.com/thunderblog/license/
In a nutshell:
- Users can distribute ThunderBrowse as long as it is the one from AMO and complies with the present distribution rules.
- ThunderBrowse is free to use and download.
- ThunderBrowse cannot be sold [1].
- You can modify ThunderBrowse for your own personal use BUT you CANNOT distribute your changes in any way [2].
- ThunderBrowse cannot be bundled with other works [3].
- No derivative works are allowed.
- Software is provided as-is and GameSpotting! Networks is not responsible for any problems that may occur.
- Babelzilla translators own their respective translations.
[1]: This clause has an exception that is mainly focused on print media such as magazines. I will only allow ThunderBrowse to be sold with my express written permission (this means if you want to sell a magazine bundled with a CD/DVD and it contains ThunderBrowse you need to get my permission).
[2]: We don’t want people changing and/or distributing individual files and/or wrapping the changes they and/or someone else made into an extension and then distributing it. If you created a custom skin for ThunderBrowse using Stylish or something, by all means, please upload it. This clause may change to no modifications at all if problems arise.
[3]: This pertains to software bundling that some people do. We don’t want ThunderBrowse to be bundled with anything unless we say that it is okay (again, asking for permission is the way to go).