Making a personal profit

Granted Jason’s post is great, distinguishing core license issues from addons license issues and in each case what is allowed or not. Interpreting licenses is not easy it’s nice to know where the line stands as far as commercial distributions or addons are concerned.

I think Ryan’s post on the subject is a nice guideline of what can and cannot be done (letter of the law, as he says), but also what should and should not be done (spirit of the law). Also, there is a hint about a "private label", which should make everyone happy

If you missed it, you should definitely read it !

Anyway, I think it’s a good sign people are debating licenses, it means MODx is getting really popular and people have projects in store and need clarity on the subject. As I said, the matter of licensing is not so clear cut thus clear guidelines are really helping.

Quote from: davidm at Dec 19, 2006, 12:11 PM

the matter of licensing is not so clear cut thus clear guidelines are really helping.

One small nitpick on my part. The matter of licensing is very clearly defined. Just not very well understood by some people.

Yeah well, it might be so but even lawyers are arguing about it... at least from an international perspective. Being french I am pretty much aware of the issues of local law vs open source licenses... But that’s lawyers perspective. I have a strong ethical point of view about the GPL of course, and I agree with the spirit of the law.

But as a freelance selling services around MODx, I have to take into account how defendable a license can be, if say a french company does not respect the GPL and sells a commercial version of MODx what happens ? How do I (and several others) make a case in french court ?

Aynway, it’s not that clearcut as far as GPL being recognized by local law. In France, advocates of open source have created CeCILL a french law adapted version of the GPL. More interresting, initiatives like GPL v3.

I don’t really agree things are so clear, indeed...

Quote from: davidm at Dec 19, 2006, 03:21 PM

Yeah well, it might be so but even lawyers are arguing about it... at least from an international perspective. Being french I am pretty much aware of the issues of local law vs open source licenses... But that’s lawyers perspective. I have a strong ethical point of view about the GPL of course, and I agree with the spirit of the law.

But as a freelance selling services around MODx, I have to take into account how defendable a license can be, if say a french company does not respect the GPL and sells a commercial version of MODx what happens ? How do I (and several others) make a case in french court ?

Aynway, it’s not that clearcut as far as GPL being recognized by local law. In France, advocates of open source have created CeCILL a french law adapted version of the GPL. More interresting, initiatives like GPL v3.

I don’t really agree things are so clear, indeed...

Interesting, I had no idea of the state of things in France in regards to IPR. In that case, I should restate my proposition -- the rules around the GPL are very clear. The enforceability of it isn’t so clear.

BTW David, I am not picking on you. I just get frustrated by certain users (not just in this community, but in many others) who act like the GPL can be intreperted the way they’d like because A) they don’t really understand it or B) they don’t like it. The meaning and loopholes and rules behind the GPL are pretty well known and understood at this point.

I didn’t take it personnal, I hadn’t make that clear enough when I first posted so I elaborated a bit

I sure understand the frustration... there always will be those who play for the team and those who don’t and will play for keeps, but the latest are spotted fast by OS communities and quickly distrusted. In the end, those who take and never give back might think they’re smarter, but they pay their own price sooner or later...