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Licenses for the Addons Repository*
This discussion was created from comments split from: Food for thought pertaining to plugin modifications. Developers Please give your thoughts!.
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A specific license must be in the class.myplugin.plugin.php file (or at least in the zip): I need to work on membership plugin but no license is specified. So I need to mail to the author...wasting dev time
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You guys are getting into the license nitty-gritty, and I'm talking about common-sense, respect, ethics, morality, and virtues, plagiarism, and reasonable structure and best practice
for adding updates and modifications on the addon board.
I am also not talking about the original poster designing a plugin and future developers griping about "wasting dev time" (if it weren't for the original designer you wouldn't have seen the plugin). There is nothing stopping you from adding changes and posting a zip in the plugin discussion subject threads and using the original plugin feedback and adding your name to the description as the person making the mods.
But taking an "active " plugin making a few line changes - giving it a new name - and making it a new add-on, and calling it your own:
seems like about the poorest practice there is, in terms of structure, inconsistency, confusion, and a wild-west attitude (not to mention respect, ethics, and plagiarism).
causes confusion with naming conventions, finding plugin in dashboard, conflicts with other plugins, and logic and influx of inconsistent plugin names and even worse structure then the current addon section.
In summary, for all of you who don't like structure, rules, and respecting others, I know I am not going to change your mind.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
I agree with @peregrine. Licensing aside, it's a matter of ethics, or even just plain politeness.
A licence makes things clearer, but, when absent, I would not consider notifying the author of your intention "a waste of time". After all, either your plugin is a significant rework of the original, to the point of being completely different (and, as such, it takes days of work, and you can always contact the author before starting), or it's an almost exact clone, and waiting one or two days before releasing it should not make any difference.
Just a clarification for @hgtonight, without going into the realm of "legalese": plugins are not automatically covered by OS licences. There's a post from Todd about this topic, the contributor agreement applies to modifications to code provided by Vanilla Ltd.
Now, back to the original topic.
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@businessdad that was @Todd referring to your case, and client who wanted to release GPL.
I don't think he is saying that all plugins here have to be GPL, if that was the case I might remove my plugins, becuase I have not been told this.
grep is your friend.
That's what I wanted to point out. Uploaded plugins and themes are not automatically under GPL, it's up to you to choose the licence. The contributions you make to stuff released by Vanilla Ltd, instead, are GPL because the original software is covered by it.
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Nobody said that every plugin should be GPL.
From my point of view a plugin can be useful or really useful. If a plugin add a feature to VF, that plugin is useful; but if the plugin structure and license allow me to easily adapt this feature to my needs, this plugin is REALLY useful.
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Thanks for the link
Without getting into a philosophical realm of a boat, would it be possible to list the license of plugins in the repository? I feel this would be a pretty easy mod that would instantly solve a lot of issues. Maybe give a warning if an uploaded plugin doesn't have a license specified.
Do we assume a restrictive license (no modifications!) or a permissive license (modify but don't distribute!) or a completely open one (do what you want, but keep attribution and license accordingly). I would probably choose middle ground if there isn't a specific license.
As far as etiquette goes, try to communicate with the original offer. Even if you just want to share a modified addon with bugfixes, I would suggest uploading a whole "new" addon and just linking to it from the old's discussions. AFAIK, you can only remove your own plugins.
Sticky wickets indeed.
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From the FAQ about GPL Licenses: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins
Per the GPL, all Vanilla plugins are covered by the GPL. I can't think of a single Vanilla plugin that would even be considered a 'borderline' case. According to the GPL neither Todd nor plugin authors have a say in the matter.
So if you're offering a paid-for plugin for Vanilla, anyone can modify it and re-sell or re-use it as they wish. Unless - that is - your plugin is a completely separate application that is only being called from the Vanilla framework. At the end of the day the only way you can keep your plugin code proprietary is to run it as a service or release it under the GNU Affero license, which covers SaaS usage.
@50sQuiff In this case, would be impossible to distribute any software using an GPL'd framework under a different license?
I am thinking it would then only be possible to release an application under an 'incompatible' license.
@peregrine, sorry for derailing the topic.
@UnderDog, possibly split the discussion?
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The kind of compatible free licenses is extensive. look at the list
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
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If you're talking about plug-ins which are interdependent with the core of a GPL product (like Vanilla) then I believe you're correct. You must release your plugins under the terms of the GPL or equivalent. I'm not sure if GNU Affero is considered GPL-compatible.
Vanilla would have to re-release the source using a non-GPL license to change this situation. You can debate ethics, but the fact is the guy referenced in the OP can do what he wants. He could even rip off and re-sell paid-for plugins if he likes. It is of course up to Vanilla how they manage their repository.
@50sQuiff Ok, Garden is the framework that Vanilla is written on. Both have GPLv2 releases. There are 4 ways of extending Vanilla, Plugins, Applications, Themes, and Locales. Plugins can only extend applications. Locales can extend Applications, Themes, Plugins, and even other Locales. Applications are essentially completely separate from each other, although you can share data. Themes are, strictly speaking, only dependent on the application although they can extend plugins too.
Where do each type of extension fall into requiring a GPL compatible license? In my mind, applications can be whatever, everything else would have to be GPL compatible.
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@hgtonight, that's just Vanilla/Garden nomenclature and not really relevant. Per the GPL's definitions none of them would even be considered a borderline case. They're all interdependent with the Garden Framework and Dashboard application.
I would contest this but is one of the reason why I don't like GPL that much. In any case, if this were true you wouldn't have proprietary wordpress plugins and you do.
GNU Affero license, has to be the stupidest licence ever conceived, though it is your life know yourself out..
If you want to run a SaaS the last thing you want to do is is release it under AGPL. The whole point of SaaS, is you don't have to release. If you employ AGP with SaaS, your USP, is gone.
Licensing only concerns what you release, if you don't release, it is it yours, nobody can take it away.
Copy-left is supposed to counter the stupidity of copy-right, not replicate it. Even so GPL has it is place, I don't like complacency.
But be very careful, when considering such a licence, consider the practical consequences. By their nature they are limiting.
grep is your friend.
@x00, it sure is a minefield out there. I don't like the GPL for this reason but I guess the creators couldn't forsee all the consequences. It's in the interests of Vanilla (and other similar projects) to use GPL though. You don't build a product ecosystem by releasing your code if people only create proprietary plugins and themes.
Bottom line: if you distribute a Vanilla plugin it is automatically covered by the GPL.
Wordpress has already gone through this. Legally - ignoring all the bluster in the community - Wordpress themes MUST be distributed under the GPL. It is, however, possible to release CSS and some JS under a split license, with the Wordpress-dependent PHP code remaining GPL.
Even then it's still an absolute cluster****. Your work must be completely original, so modifying Vanilla's custom.css or style.css wouldn't be covered. You'd need to start from a blank slate. And if your JS involves AJAX calls to the framework you probably couldn't license that either.
I'm not sure I agree. it is idealogical, look the history of GLP, the more recent licence is the more restrictive.
grep is your friend.
Discussion split, suggest title please? This is what I came up with...
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@UnderDog sounds good to me. Thanks!
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good one UD, thank god its called Repository and not Depository ( which was used last week and I think is a toilet lol )
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No Depository is not a toilet, it can be anywhere people deposit something . Just be glad I did not use Suppository ....
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