MPL license: Can I completely lose grants?

Question

In MPL license:

5.1. The rights granted under this License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with any of its terms. However, if You become compliant, then the rights granted under this License from a particular Contributor are reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until such Contributor explicitly and finally terminates Your grants, ...

Does this mean I could permanently lose rights from a contributor? Doesn't that mean that the contributors could ban anybody from having grants permanently?

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 26 '24 at 13:20

8

Doesn't that mean that the contributors could ban anybody from having grants permanently?

Yes, but only if you were out of compliance in the first place, and the "first time exception" later in 5.1 doesn't apply.

The simple solution here is to make sure you stay in compliance with the license then none of this applies.

answered Feb 26 '24 at 13:20

Philip Kendall

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Yeah, but does that mean that I fail to comply with the license due to errors, I can permanently lose any rights? – rusluck Feb 27 '24 at 03:21
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@rusluck, Yes. Licenses are a serious matter and you better not make an error in complying with their terms and conditions. – Bart van Ingen Schenau Feb 27 '24 at 08:08
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@rusluck the (theoretical maximum) punishments for license errors are almost always insanely harsh. It rarely ever actually comes to that though – Hobbamok Feb 27 '24 at 12:12
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No open source copyright holder is likely to sue anyone who makes a good faith effort to comply. – user253751 Feb 27 '24 at 15:33
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@user253751 Unfortunately, that is not the case. – Philip Kendall Feb 27 '24 at 15:35

MPL license: Can I completely lose grants?

1 Answers1