Do they have to be GPL or can they be something else? And if nothing is specified in the code are they considered to be GPL by default?
Share
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
Do they have to be GPL or can they be something else? And if nothing is specified in the code are they considered to be GPL by default?
I’m not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt.
First off, Mozilla has nothing to do this. There is no reason to believe that Firefox add-ons are GPL-licensed by default. That’s because the license of the browser doesn’t affect the license of the add-ons; they don’t typically reuse the browser’s source code. (In fact, Firefox itself isn’t necessarily GPL’d. Mozilla releases it under a tri-license which includes the Mozilla Public License as one of the license options.)
So, I’d imagine that if you don’t specify a license to an add-on, then that add-on defaults to whatever copyright control would be extended to you as author of the add-on, depending on your jurisdiction.
Now if you used GPL’d code in your add-on, then that add-on would obviously be GPL-licensed if you released it publicly. Unless you got special permission from the original author to use a different license, of course.