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The Google Code License Shuffle

We've previously covered some of the (minor) controversy surrounding the choice of licenses for projects hosted at the Google Code site. In a nutshell, the Google open source folks are concerned about the proliferation of free and open source licenses, and one way in which they choose to make a stand is by limiting the licenses that projects on their site can use. As they point out, there are plenty of other hosting sites you can use - but being Google, their opinion does have some weight.

Recent events demonstrate that Google is as serious as ever about license proliferation - and that they know how to listen to their user base. In late May, they looked at the actual license use for the projects that were using Google Code, and determined that less than 3% were using the Mozilla Public License (MPL). So, they dumped it: existing projects were not effective, but new projects would no longer be allowed to use the MPL.

A few days ago, though, they reevaluated this position. After listening to the community, they realized that shutting out the MPL meant shutting out the whole Mozilla ecosystem - which is fairly important in the open source world, after all. And having come to this realization, they not only put back the MPL, but they added the Eclipse Public License (EPL) as well - recognizing the importance of Eclipse and the host of projects associated with it.

That's where things stand right now. Google Code still supports far fewer licenses than other hosting sites which are free-for-alls, but they've opened up a bit. It's unlikely that this decision will satisfy everyone - in particular, AGPL advocates have already shown up in the comments to the latest blog entry - but Google is trying to navigate tricky waters here.

• google
• licensing

by an anonymous user on Sep. 01, 2008

It is no secret that there are way too many licenses out there in the F/OSS space, and that is adding to the confusion present. While Google might be able to do some housecleaning, there is enough momentum around several key licenses, so how the effort to consolidate licenses works out is going to be interesting to see.

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