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  • I asked a long long time ago but I cannot find the thread so I’m asking again for clarification.

    I have a client who would like to have the front and back end customised to their requirements to the last letter. I said I would find out what extend things can be changed or modified.

    The areas I would like clarification on are more related to the back-end of things and the included source files.

    My client is never going to look at the actual source files but they hold the titles etc of the back-end area and this is what I would like clarification on.

    Can I edit the Language files so that it would say "my company" instead of "MODx" for the manager titles? An example...

    $_lang["modx_news"] = 'MYcompany News Notices';
    $_lang["modx_news_tab"] = 'MYcompany News';
    $_lang["modx_news_title"] = 'MYcompany News';
    $_lang["modx_security_notices"] = 'MYcompany Security Notices';


    Is this an acceptable modification?

    How about changing the Help page in the manager to reflect how to contact me since I’m the developer of the site?

    I do not wish to change any of the file mentions, shown below; as my client will not see this in the manager area.

    /**
     * Filename:       includes/lang/english.inc.php
     * Function:       Language file.
     * Encoding:       UTF8
     * Author:         The MODx Project Team
     * Date:           1 October 2009
     * Version:        2.0.4
     * MODx version:   Evolution 1.0.1
    */


    Basically my client wishes to have the manager to be customised that any mention of a company/group title would reflect theirs rather than MODx. I said I would find this out and to what extend the manager side can be modified. I did read some posts regarding the copyright of MODx but my questions are more specific and would like to find out first hand.

    Another thing while I’m on the subject of copyright. Am I permitted to heavily modify MODx to suit my own needs or is their something in place that it should be left intact? In no way do I want to repackage MODx and call it mine but I would like to hard code some PHP in to the manager, customise the user fields in the manager, create my own user registration system etc that ties in the manager itself and extend the database. Again, I do not want to touch any of the Copyright messages that clearly state this is a MODx product.

    Appreciated. Ross
      Ross Sivills - MD AugmentBLU Edinburgh, Scotland UK
      AugmentBLU - MODX Partner

      BLUcart - MODX Revolution E-Commerce & Shopping Cart
    • The intention from the project founders is to give credit where credit is due, and that means maintaining the links to and mentions of MODx in the Manage. Your question is a very good one one though, and one that we are actively working on a solid way to address. We’re considering two options, may move forward with either or both of them, as follows:

      1) A white label program for dev shops and MODx Partners that will include maintaining their look and feel and contact information in our source repository, and applying patches to every release to maintain their distribution. This will be a private distribution for a specific development shop and can have all mentions of MODx anywhere in the Manager removed.

      2) A "sanctioned copyright annihilation" annual license for one-off cases. It would be relatively low cost and licensed on a per-URL basis. Developers or customers will be responsible for maintaining the source code and making the modifications to any future upgrades that are released.

      Anyone have other suggestions or feedback?
        Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
        Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
      • Ryan, fast response as per usual! grin

        Both options sound interesting, I know it’s at the idea phase but when you say a low cost, does this mean under $100 or over. I know you maybe reluctant to answer that or prices may of not even been discussed but when I read low cost in the world of development, it’s not usually my idea of low cost; not that MODx wouldn’t be worth it of course.

        Would there still be free version or is that option 1?

        Also, for my current situation; can I modify the Language file to reflect the person’s business title in the mean time or is this not a permitted modification. Oh and to edit/change/add new fields to the user management area.

        Cheers.

        Just a thought... maybe some form of sticky topic to see what the regular users of MODx think of your ideas? I’m sure the community would be most interested to put together ideas with the Foundation as it will be everyone’s interest for such options and to see what the future holds, IMHO.
          Ross Sivills - MD AugmentBLU Edinburgh, Scotland UK
          AugmentBLU - MODX Partner

          BLUcart - MODX Revolution E-Commerce & Shopping Cart
        • Moved and stickied; thanks for the suggestion. Everyone, please let us know what you think!

          I think we’re in the same ballpark on pricing ideas for the one-off deployments. There’s a lot of consideration to do for the managed/maintained custom deployments; don’t expect much to surface there. The pricing on that option would certainly be much higher, and probably only appropriate for shops with more than a few employees and tens or hundreds of MODx sites.
            Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
            Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
            • 26903
            • 1,336 Posts
            2) A "sanctioned copyright annihilation" annual license for one-off cases. It would be relatively low cost and licensed on a per-URL basis. Developers or customers will be responsible for maintaining the source code and making the modifications to any future upgrades that are released.

            Its an interesting area this to say the least, I believe the CentOS project have to change all Red Hat branding of any kind, artwork, icons etc. that have Red Hat copyright because Red Hat does not give them permission to use their copyrighted material. Code/SRPM attributions of course aren’t changed as they are GPL’ed, not copyrighted CentOS even go as far not even referring to Red Hat by name, rather calling them a ’large North American Linux supplier’.

            I don’t think you can stop people doing this or grant them a license somehow to say they can do it, I think they just can, what you can do is stop people using MODx copyright artwork, as its not theirs as such. You may be able to say something like :-

            ’There is an attribution to MODx at the bottom of every manager page, if this is removed then all other MODx copyrighted material must be removed also, any of this material can be edited/changed as long as the attribution is left in tact’.

            Although this may interpreted as being overly harsh, don’t know and IANAL.
              Use MODx, or the cat gets it!
            • Ryan, you may want to change the topic title if you think it would be more suitable as something more relevant to how the topic will continue from here...

              I’m sure there will be a fair amount of interest in the development of these ideas as it will probably have a huge impact on many developers. I’m trying to start my dev business up here in Scotland and it’s possibly about to kick off as I have been speaking to some very good leads. If this is a potential way forward with MODx and things take off for me, I will need to be ready for the possible impact or changes as will many who are already established.

              Could you make it clear if there will be a free version of MODx in the future as some may be wondering if MODx is going to end up being a paid for product ONLY in the years to come. Also my question about changing the language files, is this allowed at this moment in time?
                Ross Sivills - MD AugmentBLU Edinburgh, Scotland UK
                AugmentBLU - MODX Partner

                BLUcart - MODX Revolution E-Commerce & Shopping Cart
              • Quote from: rossco at Nov 06, 2009, 03:42 PM

                Could you make it clear if there will be a free version of MODx in the future as some may be wondering if MODx is going to end up being a paid for product ONLY in the years to come. Also my question about changing the language files, is this allowed at this moment in time?
                MODx is, always has been, and always will be a GPL-licensed content management framework. If you make modifications/extensions to files distributed with MODx and re-distribute them, you must make the modified source code available for those you distribute it to. There will always be an Open Source distribution of MODx; I’ll let you decide if that means a free version, but we also want to provide options for those that want to re-brand the user interface, get commercial support, etc., and these options will in turn help support the project. Our goal is to inspire a MODx ecosystem where service providers can operate more efficiently to deliver and support web projects involving MODx, i.e. make a living, while making development and maintenance of the core framework self-sufficient.

                So as long as you are willing to maintain the GPL licensing terms and copyrights, you can modify the language files, the database tables, and code in any files distributed in the MODx package. You just have to provide the source and extend the same licensing terms to anyone you distribute the modifications to.

                IMO though, the things you want to do, other than customizing the language files (or copyright annihilation), can be done without making changes to the core tables, and often without modifying other core files. By isolating your customizations using plugins and custom tables, you protect an upgrade path for yourself and your customers. And you might be able to share your work when generic enough; your own contributions to the community.
                  • 22840
                  • 1,572 Posts
                  1) A white label program for dev shops and MODx Partners that will include maintaining their look and feel and contact information in our source repository, and applying patches to every release to maintain their distribution. This will be a private distribution for a specific development shop and can have all mentions of MODx anywhere in the Manager removed.

                  Not sure about the method you are thinking of using to achieve this but thought I would just say how interspire do there’s to see if it’s of any use.

                  Basically with interspire products there is 1 file called whitelabel.php, that holds all the links and titles for everywhere that interspire is mentioned in the admin section which works great as every time we purchase a license from them we don’t have to redo the white label file, they are version specific, therefore we only edit 1 copy and for every other install we do we just upload the file and everything is changed.

                  The one thing I would say though is that their products only work on the domain the software is purchased so it would be interesting to hear how you would manage this. The biggest pain for me using their shop software is having to put in support requests for the licence key’s to be changed because we never develope the sites on the domain they will be used on because 9 times out of 10 there is another site there.
                  • Thanks OG, my client already knows about MODx as I showed them the site. They just wanted their manager area to be a bit more personal to them for what ever reason.

                    The reason why I wanted to change the user fields in the manager is because I live in the UK and would like to use the relevant language for here. We don’t use ZIP CODE, it’s POST CODE; STATE is COUNTY etc etc.

                    All I needed to know right now was can I change the language to suit my needs and add some extra fields to the manager which you have answered. grin

                      Ross Sivills - MD AugmentBLU Edinburgh, Scotland UK
                      AugmentBLU - MODX Partner

                      BLUcart - MODX Revolution E-Commerce & Shopping Cart
                      • 3749
                      • 24,544 Posts
                      I’m not a lawyer either, but from a common-sense standpoint, all of us personalize our sites in various ways and there’s no problem with that. If you do it without modifying the MODx source code (and you almost always can) you should be fine.

                      Many sites don’t show the word "MODx" or the logo in the front end and, with a little effort, you could not show it in the back end without modifying any MODx source code. I like to put "Powered by MODx" with a link to modxcms.com if the client doesn’t object, but some clients do.

                      You can always create new files of language strings (which I don’t consider source code -- though I’m not sure of their legal status) to make the text in the front and back ends say anything you want. Similarly, you can modify the CSS files to load different images.
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