Dual licensing

GPL works in court so it cannot considered to be only bs.

Cf. gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dlink-judgement_frankfurt.html

Also, you need to consider that if I get a GPL:d code licenced to me by party 1, modify it, and release it to party 2 under non GPL compliant license, there is a license breach between me and the party 1, but the license between me and party 2 can be legally valid as long as party 1 does not decide to enforce the license.

In the case of CB, all plugins must inherit a class which is under GPL and hence are derivative works. Then CB copyright owneres could try to enforce their license - hardly feasible, as having commercial extensions can be considered as a good thing.

So as long as the numbers stay small, I would say that license is less relevant due to the large enforcement costs.

And what comes to piracy, it only works if there is a sufficiently large group or a sufficiently dense network of users. As long as search cost is larger than the cost for illegal copying, there is little piracy.

But I still keep the option open to license this under GPL and then just have a donation button on my demo site.

mikko

I understand your point of view. I know there are only a few people out there who know how much work has to be done to release a plugin. And only a few of these few people will give something back. Thats sad.

I dont know if there is any GPL compatible license where you can differ between private and commercial usage (I think not). The only way I see is to add the GPL copyright statement to the HTML output (which cannot be removed - like PHPnuke did it) and offer a version (also GPLed) without that copyright notice for a fee. The problem is, if someone buys this version, he can offer this version for free and you cannot do anything.

But the whole license thing is not clear enough for the community and maybe also for the developers. IMO it would be better for all if Joomla were released under LGPL.

Btw. can someone tell me where I can find information to
"free Community Builder License" and "Limited Community Builder JoomlaPolis License"?

Stiggi wrote:

I understand your point of view. I know there are only a few people out there who know how much work has to be done to release a plugin. And only a few of these few people will give something back. Thats sad.

Well, this is not the main thing. The thing is that I hate teh idea of someone making money with something that I license away for free.

I dont know if there is any GPL compatible license where you can differ between private and commercial usage (I think not). The only way I see is to add the GPL copyright statement to the HTML output (which cannot be removed - like PHPnuke did it) and offer a version (also GPLed) without that copyright notice for a fee. The problem is, if someone buys this version, he can offer this version for free and you cannot do anything.

GPL has strong reciprocity, so there is no change to make a more restrictive license when licensing derivative works.

The copyright example you said is quiote valid. However, the risk of user relicensing is small due to the hassle that setting up a shop and offering support requires.

But the whole license thing is not clear enough for the community and maybe also for the developers. IMO it would be better for all if Joomla were released under LGPL.

I think it is GPL for historical reasons due to the mambo split.

Btw. can someone tell me where I can find information to "free Community Builder License" and "Limited Community Builder JoomlaPolis License"?

I asked about this in a thread, but did not find an answer. AFAIK, it is GPL because at least when I downloaded my first copy I had to accept GPL and no other licensed, and "hidden licensing" is not legal at least in Europe.

Btw, while GPL has been used in courts and it has prevailed when actual code has been used in non-GPL fashion, I am not aware of any cases where an extensions which links to GPL:d code on compile/execution have been challenged in courts.

mikko

I am a little bit confused by this posting:
forum.mamboserver.com/showpost.php?p=114703&postcount=13

Mambo is released under the GPL licence. It is 100% down to the copyright holder of Mambo to enforce the conditions of the GPL licence.

The FSF have privately confirmed to me that there are significant difficulties applying the static/dynamic link terms to a LAMP application.

As far as Mambo is concerned you are entitled to produce any component, template, addon etc and to release it under whatever license you want.

What you cannot do is to change the license of Mambo or its copyright.

I think it means that GPL doesn't apply to derivative work (ie components, modules etc) at least as far as mambo is concerned. Not sure about that.

To be honest, my experience with opensource hasn't been very long (I started dealing with opensource about the same time mambo started), but one thing i can be very certain of, is that the whole "I often donate for software i use" argument is nothing but a lie. IMHO, the donation revenue model is only advocated by large opensource "organizations" (eg unix and php, perhaps even joomla), and being force-fed to smaller communities like CB and virtuemart.

Virtuemart and joomlaspan may be getting some revenue off donations partially due to the nature of their projects, but if projects like CB and joomlahacks wish to survive purely on donations, then I'd say human nature has a long way to go for that to happen.

Case in point:
Joomlahacks (the popular maker of the joomla-smf bridge) allows users to donate via the component backend to remove the copyright. Initially they allow any amount donated, and what happened? People donated 10 cents! LOL the transaction fee for PayPal isn't even worth 10 cents.

From a software dev's point of view, I am full of admiration to the people who release their software for free, and put in so much effort to support the communities (also for free), and i'm sure everyone will agree to that. I'm not against people doing that - I'm sure many people genuinely loves to share their work and derive enjoyment from that. But if you ask me if I think they're doing the right thing, I will have to say no. So how do I support "open source"? By readily paying for quality products (eg docman, iJoomla, commercial templates etc) whether or not i'm building a hobby site or a commercial one, because I believe paying for it will help the development in the longer run.

Personally, my "agenda" isn't really against people making money off something i released for free, but rather I believe if I release something i put in quite a bit of effort into (including coding, support, debug, customize etc), then I'd rather charge for it, or not release it altogether.

ps. Man i feel bad for pirating the thread :blush: :lol:

Post edited by: p9939068, at: 2007/03/14 00:16

I´m full in line of p9939068.

I bought the whole bundle of his scripts...
they are working and his support is fantastic.

that was also my suggestion to the CB Team... to offer some more functionality and support for a little fee...

because their work is great - and they should also be given credit for this work

20-30 euros are affordable!