MODx license issue

Hi everybody,

I might not be very popular with this question, but it is only hypothetical and for info
I’m writing a small report about copyright and opensource as a general termt. In connection with that I want some actual examples and would therefore like to know the following:

If we assumed that a company wanted to use MODx as their product, would it then be against the license to rename it so it would have a name like "Company X CMS"?

I hope you understand my question, but otherwise feel free to ask...

If they distribute it they would need to supply all the source code with MODx/whatever-they’re-passing-it-off-as. Our copyright and trademark however, would mean that absolutely no support would be rendered in the community for folks trying to pass off MODx as their own invention. That’s just not cool and doesn’t give credit where credit is due.

That said, we’ve bantered around the idea on numerous occasions of coming up with a program (e.g., annual fee) for companies that just have to have a white-label manager product. The question does come up increasingly frequently though. Would companies be interested in this?

Thanks for your reply...
I’ll use it in my report...

Personally i think that companies would do it - I know that e.g. CreLoaded (osCommerce-based ecommerce-system) and many others have a white label product...
Wether the demand for it is high or not, I don’t know of course, but I could imagine that some marketing companies would like to have their own brand for a CMS...

There’s definitely a demand for it, and we want to do it, but only in a way that makes sense.

I wonder why there is a demand for this? Is it for people that want to market it as their own product? Or is it for clients who don’t want to use OpenSource applications?

If i were a client and was ’sold’ a while label version of MODx and later found out it was actually an Open Sources (as in free) application i would feel cheated. It can also be a way to ’scare’ the client into not changing service providers since the client will think that the provider owns the application that their site runs on and if they leave there will be no support. I can’t really think of an honest reason why someone would want to have a white label version, they all seem somehow underhanded. Or am I missing a legitimate reason for doing this that is not based on fooling someone?

There’s honestly a good reason if someone invests time and energy into vetting a product and participating in its development, then that makes sense. And there’s certainly community members here that would qualify in that regard. Further, if a white label product provided real monetary support for the ongoing development, even better. For me personally though, I’d rather have a dedicated team and community working on a project, and sell the security of that, compared to a proprietary solution from a (most likely much smaller group of) local providers. I’d say that the former provides for better software than the majority of the commercial solutions out there in fact.

It is an interesting debate since I think there is a large (conservative) group of potential customers, who consider opensource to be less worth than if it is a product from some company...
Personally (again) I think it is a great advantage if you have a large developement community and a potential of thousands test-persons rather than a small company with a few developers...

I think companies would want the white label product since it will be easier to sell it as their own product IMHO...