Redistributing Pale Moon
Even though Pale Moon is open source and the source is supplied under
the Mozilla Public License, redistribution of the
Pale Moon binaries (executable form) is limited by certain conditions under a proprietary
license by Moonchild Productions, as permitted under 3.2b of the
MPL v2.0. This has been required because of, among other things, the
increasing number of rogue/altered copies and people taking advantage
of the free availability of the browser to monetize upon, which is
against Pale Moon's principles of free software.
Even though Pale Moon is supplied as open source, our branding included
in the source tree is protected and you are not granted any rights or
licenses to the Pale Moon name, logo, or other identifying official
branding marks, names or phrases. To clarify the situation if you build
from source to redistribute the resulting executable form, please see
points 8, 10 and 12 below.
This license covers redistribution of officially supplied binaries and
some policies regarding binaries built from source with official
branding, which is allowed in some circumstances.
Redistribution license
Last updated: 24 February 2016
If you wish to redistribute the binaries (executable form of the code)
of Pale Moon, you are free to do so, with the following limitations:
- There is NO CHARGE for the download or distribution of the
browser package.
It is therefore not permitted if, without
limitation:
- You charge for the download of the binary packages
(e.g. paid hosting service, pay-per-download, subscription, etc.) or
access to them (password protected sites/archives/etc.)
- You charge for redistribution rights of the browser
binaries, yourself (you have no rights to it)
- You charge for a physical medium like a CD or DVD.
Example: If you provide a "cover disk" with a printed
magazine, that is considered a "no charge" item (free bonus item with
the magazine) and is therefore allowed. If you provide a disk-based magazine (digital) that includes Pale
Moon, the medium itself is paid for and considered a "charge" item, and
is therefore not allowed.
- You don't require the obligatory submission of personal
data (name, e-mail, telephone number, address, age, gender, ID, or
similar) to download the binaries. If you require registration of users
before they can download Pale Moon, you are not allowed to distribute
it. Users must, at all times, have the clear and equal option to download Pale Moon without surrendering any
personal information to you.
- The
binaries and/or archives are completely UNALTERED. This
includes addition or removal of any component of the browser or
redistributing modified parts of the browser as-built (including,
without limitation, predefined profile components, altered jar or omni
files, or modified .exe or dll components).
Redistribution is therefore not permitted if,
without limitation:
- You have re-packed the browser in a different archive
format (either common or proprietary)
(an exception to this is re-packaging required for specific target
operating systems, e.g. rpm, deb, pet)
- You have added language packs/add-ons/plugins/etc.
- You have added third-party
tools/toolbars/utilities/etc.
- You have changed supplied default preferences of the
browser
- You include a pre-set profile
- You have removed any component from the browser package
- You have edited or removed text or script files
(including license files, readmes, JavaScript modules, etc.)
- The binaries have been in any way infected with or
include a virus, trojan, or other malware
- The binaries and program structure have been in any way
obscured (e.g. by using application virtualization) making it difficult
or impossible to check for the previously listed alterations
- The binaries can be obtained without the use of third-party
software not officially endorsed, including but not limited to:
download managers, stub installers, wrappers, proprietary clients or
proprietary protocols. This includes any offering of such unendorsed
downloading software or methods, regardless of offering "direct"
downloads or allowed methods alongside the unendorsed ones.
- The binaries are not supplied as an integral part of a
commercial/non-commercial software package/larger works ("package"). If
you wish to do this, you must contact me beforehand to obtain
permission and discuss terms. Inclusion in a package will be subject to
an individual agreement (either extemporaneous or legalized) which may
or may not involve compensation.
- The binaries are not supplied as an integral part of a
commercial/non-commercial website/web service/on-line venue/etc.
("service"). If you wish to do this, you must contact me beforehand to
obtain permission and discuss terms. Inclusion in a service will be
subject to an individual agreement (either extemporaneous or legalized)
which may or may not involve compensation.
- An exception applies to points 5
and 6 of this license for educational
purposes if bundled with other open source software or supplied as part
of a curriculum or in-college resource for students.
- An exception applies to point 5 of
this license for inclusion of the officially branded binaries in freely
available and fully Open Source operating systems, including but not
limited to non-commercial variants of Linux, variants of BSD and
ReactOS. This exception only applies to unaltered versions of the Pale
Moon binaries or officially branded variants specifically built for the
target operating system from source that have not been materially
changed (including brand-specific configurations like e.g. home page,
default search engine). If any of the essential settings of the browser
are altered beyond what is strictly needed for providing a working
build on the target operating system, the exception in this point does
not apply and the license defaults to point 10, instead.
- Clarification
of "officially branded variants specifically built
for the target operating system": If an officially-built binary (i.e.
built
by our team) is available for the target operating system (e.g.
existing Linux binaries), then those binaries will always, in
principle, take precedence over a third-party build to ensure necessary
QA and compatibility. Building and distributing a binary with official
branding is in that situation only
in principle allowed if an actual variant build is required for the
target distribution's compatibility (e.g. kernel or library
requirements) or operation, and otherwise not
impacting the material content of the browser package as a whole. QA of
and support for the resulting variant binaries will in that case fall
on the maintainer who will have to take full responsibility for the
variant binary.
- This redistribution agreement and any Individual Agreements
for the redistribution of executable code are provided by Moonchild
Productions ("Moonchild", "M.C. Straver") explicitly for the Pale Moon
executable code, and not by the Initial Developer or any Contributor.
The Initial Developer and every Contributor is hereby indemnified for
any liability incurred by the Initial Developer or such Contributor as
a result of these terms.
- The only exception to this
redistribution policy not otherwise covered in points 7 or 8 is if the
repackaged or private build with official branding has been
pre-approved by Moonchild for redistribution and is listed on this
website as a contributed build. Contributed builds are subject to a
screening process, may be accepted or rejected, may be re-screened at a
later time, and may be at any time removed, in Moonchild's sole
discretion, either with or without stated reason.
- If a distribution is authorized as per point 10, the
contributed build may be redistributed in unaltered
form by third parties as set out in the points above and under
the same conditions.
- If you wish to distribute binaries for other platforms,
building from Pale Moon source code, you may not use official branding
unless these builds have also been approved as a contributed build as
per point 10 of this license or if they are exempt under points 7 or 8
of this license. Even so, you obtain no rights to the Pale Moon name or
logo, merely the permission to use it for the 3rd party build, and only
for as long as it is officially endorsed or satisfies the conditions
for exemption. In all other cases you must use significantly different
branding files/graphics and a significantly different name for the
browser.
- Unofficial branding ("New Moon") as supplied in the source
code may be used for unendorsed binaries at all times. Thusly branded
binaries with the New Moon logo and product name are not subject to the
endorsement and exception rules as set out in previous points of this
license and may be freely distributed in altered or unaltered form,
subject to the Mozilla Public License as regards source code changes
and availability. This permission does, however, not include any rights
or license to the Pale Moon name and logo that may still be present in
the resulting unofficially branded binaries.
This license may be updated without notice, so please make sure to
check back on occasion if you redistribute the browser. That being
said, there is no intention of making changes to the core of this
license and the main premise of free availability behind it.
If you have any questions about this redistribution policy, think
anything is in error or wish to discuss individual redistribution terms
for your specific scenario, then please contact me.
Authorized inclusions
Pale Moon may be authorized for inclusion in commercial or
non-commercial software packages in its executable form following an
individual agreement (as explained in the redistribution license
above). For reference, always contact me if it
is not clear if inclusion of the Pale Moon browser is authorized,
especially when it comes to commercial software. There are some
individual agreements with software vendors, which may not be public,
listed, or announced, so if there is any doubt, get
in touch with me. This will tackle two problems at once:
- If an inclusion is authorized, it
potentially prevents incorrect bad press for the company, which should
never be anyone's intention. So before making
public posts about a suspected breach of the above license, always contact me to verify!
- If an inclusion is not authorized,
contacting me will alert me to the issue at hand (I don't have the time
to scour the Internet for this kind of thing) so people can be called
to order if needed.
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