OVPL summary

[Alex Bligh]

--On 14 September 2005 13:56 -0700 Mitchell Baker <Mitchell at mozilla.org> 
wrote:

> If anyone else thinks there is some special rights for the Initial
> Developer I would love to hear it.   Perhaps there is a drafting error or
> something else I've missed.   If not, I would like to end the view that
> the MPL has special rights for the Initial Developer.

It was me who started this, and I apologize! The intent was to pick a
license (MPL) which was obviously "in practice" equitable, and not
materially asymmetric, but was drafted in a manner where it appears to
treat ID and contributors differently. The intent of doing this was
to show that drafting like this does not make the license unfair. It was
not meant to be a criticism of the MPL, rather a criticism of those who
argue against drafting which is not entirely symmetric.

For what it's worth, I think the MPL is very nearly symmetric *in practice*
(it's grant clauses are obviously slightly different in terms of drafting).
There are some differences (clearly clause 13 gives some right to the ID
that it does not give to the contributor, or it wouldn't be there or
would have a contributor parallel), but only a religious zealot would get
worried about them.

Alex