Can we have an official statement on non-GPL addons

Yeah, Jeff really nailed it on the head, IMO. As much as anyone may want to be financially rewarded for any kind of "add-on", you really should stay grounded realizing that it never would have been possible in the first place if not for the foundation/developers/community.

If your Add-On is really great enough for monetary consideration, put up a "Donation Box" on your site and let the truly grateful reward you for your contribution to the primary application’s longevity. Karma baby.

Donations really aren’t a viable business model without an organization behind the Donor recipient with the sole purpose of constantly soliciting donations and support from existing and new donors. We’re tremendously grateful for everything that’s been donated to date, and it’s been quite helpful, but there’s no way it’d support even a single person with a low cost of living, much less the cost of hosting and time spent managing the project.

Quote from: Bravado at Jun 28, 2007, 05:43 PM

This is perfectly legit in my opinion and wouldn’t break any GPL license agreement simply because you’re not charging for the use of the software...just for the support of it.

I hate to be pedantic about this, but I really want to make sure people don’t misinterpret what you’re saying on this issue. This entire discussion is about the freedom of software and the obligations that people have in using/reusing that software. Whether you charge a million bucks for it, or give it away for free to your friends is 100% irrelevant. You can do either and it doesn’t change the license terms one tiny bit.

Thank you Victor, and to further return to the specific technical issues that are at the heart of this debate, the real question is does accessing/interfacing with the MODx API constitute a derivative work and impose the GPL license on such code?

The answer is no. The intention of the "public" MODx API is to provide functions for separate add-on programs to use; it’s a framework for building custom web applications, and in this role constitutes "mere aggregation" of the framework and the separate add-on application (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation). IMHO, the fact that this application requires MODx, which is GPL, does not make it GPL any more than running a non-GPL application in Linux does, and I’ll use this quote to justify it:

from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation:

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the `main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case.

However, there is a clear distinction between developing a separate add-on component and extending the core application (modifying GPL code directly, extending core classes, copying and pasting core logic from GPL code, etc.). For MODx purposes, I want to clearly define MODx add-ons as separate programs/content that access and use the core services of the framework for logic, persistence, etc., and are not bound by the core’s GPL license; differentiated from MODx core extensions, which will have to be GPL since they constitute what I consider to be derivative code or modules.

So, in summary, the official stance of the MODx founders at this time is:

• MODx Add-Ons = GPL "plugins" (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins)
• MODx Core Extensions = GPL "modules" (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLModuleLicense)

I hope this makes everyone feel a little more at ease about our position for GPL compliance.


[NOTE: be careful not not to confuse the GPL terminology of plugins and modules with MODx plugins and modules as they do not mean the same in each context. All MODx managed content elements, templates, template variables, chunks, snippets, plugins, modules are MODx Add-Ons. Core extensions are slightly harder to define at the moment, but the object-oriented core changes coming soon will help clarify this.]

Thanks Jason. It’s perfect for me. (And I dont plan on not releasing my work. You just never know what licensing issues may come up with a client).

Chuck