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11
jegelstaff
Re: Future Licensing of Xoops

Quote:

Draven wrote (regarding dual licensing XOOPS with a commercial version and a GPL version):

The only thing I'm not sure of is how this would work with XOOPS since Xoops.org isn't really a company, while the site owns the copyright, no one person owns the site, or do they? Would Kazu?


Thanks for the great post and references!

Regarding that one question quoted above, yes I think you're right, there would have to be a company that controlled the code and then chose what version to give away when. Since XOOPS already exists as a GPL'd product, no company can start up to do that, they would not have rights to the code. Perhaps some conglomeration of the current core development team could do it, but that's a very complicated legal question.

However, there is nothing stopping an enterprising company from developing the code base themselves, either as a fork, or in conjunction with the core team, and basing their business on providing XOOPS consulting. This is essentially how the very successful Typo3 product/project works I believe. There is a company behind Typo3, but the product itself is completely open source. They provide support and help setting up Typo3 installations (I believe they also originally developed Typo3 themselves and chose to release it as plain open source, no dual license).

And Draven, I don't think we live too far from each other, hmmmm.....



--Julian
12
Draven
Re: Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/21 1:24

  • Draven

  • Module Developer

  • Posts: 337

  • Since: 2003/5/28


Quote:
And Draven, I don't think we live too far from each other, hmmmm.....

I'm right downtown, about 2 blocks from the Eaton Center. :)


Quote:
Regarding that one question quoted above, yes I think you're right, there would have to be a company that controlled the code and then chose what version to give away when. Since XOOPS already exists as a GPL'd product, no company can start up to do that, they would not have rights to the code. Perhaps some conglomeration of the current core development team could do it, but that's a very complicated legal question.


Yeah, I think so too. However, the core developers of X3, if indeed it was a complete rewrite, could go this route I suppose. Although I'm sure this would open a whole other can of worms

Quote:
However, there is nothing stopping an enterprising company from developing the code base themselves, either as a fork, or in conjunction with the core team, and basing their business on providing XOOPS consulting. This is essentially how the very successful Typo3 product/project works I believe. There is a company behind Typo3, but the product itself is completely open source. They provide support and help setting up Typo3 installations (I believe they also originally developed Typo3 themselves and chose to release it as plain open source, no dual license).


Ture, there's a quote I'd love to reference but I can't for the life of me find it, basically it was along the lines that relying on selling services for a product (support, installation etc) to support developent of the product wasn't a very viable business module and many companies using this module fail. Note that I mean businesses, not an individual like myself selling these services, since I am only supporting myself.


I defineitely think there's an advantage to a company releasing code to the public, but also having means to pay a small core group to develop the product on a dialy basis, Redhat and MySQL are great examples.

Xoops has reached a point that it is, or almost is, a viable product for corporations and possibly even developers looking to sell a modified verson to clients (not just the service). So this is an interesting debate and I definitely find myself slowly in need of something along the commercial license lines.

Getting back to the dual license stuff, I found some more info and answers.

Here's a little FAQ I pulled from open office.org with regards to subitted code and how it "could" work with dual licensing.
Quote:
If I contribute code to OpenOffice.org what am I going to be asked to do as far as licenses are concerned?
All contributions to the source code will require that the code is automatically available under both the LGPL and the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). Sun asks that developers fill out the Joint Copyright Assignment (JCA; see below) so that the copyright is unified. The JCA ensures that Sun can defend license violations if necessary. Sun is absolutely committed to the dual license mechanism of LGPL + SISSL for source code and will remain so committed.

If you are interested in only committing modifiable documentation which isn't intended for inclusion or integration in the OpenOffice.org product, the Public Documentation License may be relevant. Please see the section below on the license.


I haven't read all of this yet (large white paper on dual licensing) but it looks promising.
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/valimaki.pdf
13
brash
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/21 1:53

  • brash

  • Friend of XOOPS

  • Posts: 2206

  • Since: 2003/4/10


Reading the fine print of complex product licensing makes my head hurt. It is obvious I think that what ever is decided will take in depth and careful consideration. My bigger concern really is how the XOOPS community in general will take this. To me there seems to be a fairly inherent expectation that anything released to the public should be free. I feel that we must first educate people that this mind set is not necessarily in the best interests of XOOPS (or themselves as XOOPS users). I do think a fine line needs to be walked there though between doing what is best for XOOPS as a product, and doing what is best for XOOPS as a community.
14
jmass
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/22 1:39

  • jmass

  • Friend of XOOPS

  • Posts: 524

  • Since: 2003/12/18


I have mixed feelings about this.

LGPL - I would not mind being able to bundle Xoops3 wityh my modifications and sell it without distributing the code for my additions. That is my selfish side.

GPL - At the same time I really like the idea of everyone HAVING to gove back if they distribute. It "keeps you honest" so to speak.

JMass
15
amayer
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/22 21:26

  • amayer

  • Friend of XOOPS

  • Posts: 82

  • Since: 2003/10/18


As somebody who has made a living from XOOPS in the past couple of years (and continues to) I'm very interested in this discussion.

I agree with all the points made in this discussion so far, and I think it's going to be a very difficult decision for someone to make.

For me, the strength of XOOPS is the source code for hundreds of available modules. There is a truely awesome selection! This is probably the one single thing that stops me using any other CMS.

So one problem I see with a license change is that most XOOPS modules are simple enough to be written initially by one person, and that they are mostly done for personal reasons. This means that GPL-style collaboration is not really a motivating factor for the original developer - they can code it all on their own from scratch.

With a license that doesn't support sharing code, they then might think
"hey, why should I bother releasing my module. I could just sell it instead." This would be a great shame, as they were just "scratching an itch" anyway and not motivated by making commercial software. The result would be that XOOPS wouldn't have such a wide ranging and colourful amount of modules. Whereas the GPL lets people release code that has already served its purpose, and the authorcan rest in the comfort of knowing that the code will remain free forever (as in freedom, not money).

Of course I could be wrong - but I would be interested in your comments anyway!

Andy
16
Draven
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/24 1:15

  • Draven

  • Module Developer

  • Posts: 337

  • Since: 2003/5/28


Try to remember that having the right to sell a module doesn't mean you have to, should or even could sell it. For the most part, and no offense to the developers, 90% of the modules would never make any money, people wouldn't pay for them. So the developer can either release it for free or keep it to himself. He will most likely not get anyone to pay for it, IMO.

What it WOULD encourage is for people to step up the quality of their modules so they might have a chance of making money, thus improving the quality of business level modules available for Xoops. Atleast this is my view on it.
17
amayer
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/24 8:42

  • amayer

  • Friend of XOOPS

  • Posts: 82

  • Since: 2003/10/18


Good point. Allowing modules to be closed source, would indeed be an incentive for some really good developers to contentrate on business-quality modules - which would be good for the overall reputation of Xoops, and would "up" the expectation of less professional module developers.

But on the other hand, I think it would slow down the overall development of the XOOPS "platform". As the opensource.org website says: "People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing."

I guess both approaches are capable of getting good results. But I wonder if the opensource way isn't so relevant to XOOPS at the moment because most modules and parts of the kernel are simple enough for single developers to work on them alone. But say XOOPS was to be become a bigger more complex project (perhaps a three tier application server, for example) then I think it would be difficult for individuals to pull this off, and the open source community would have to work together in larger teams, and then the open-source nature becomes more relevant and successful.

So... I guess we need to think about what XOOPS 2007 could look like if it's allowed to "take off"? Will it just look similiar to XOOPS now, but be more friendly to the business community with higher quality modules. Or will it be part of a much bigger ecosystem, integrated with server modules (eg. mod_xoops?) and other applications and platform, with a hundred times more developers and lots of different protocols (eg. LDAP) and standards supported? Who knows?

Anyway, that's just me thinking out loud!

Andy
18
Alan-A
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/24 10:48

  • Alan-A

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 191

  • Since: 2004/2/17


Hallo,

a few thoughts from the crypt...

isn't releasing a "closed source module" a bit like theft from the community?

When I develop a module (or theme), then it is only of use in conjunction with a XOOPS core (ports aren't relevant here). As the core is open, then I'm making my money without giving anything back to the people who developed the core.
Ok, I could make a donation, but most likely would not. I could also say that the people who developed the core knew what they were doing and that I'm not responsible for their actions.
I'm not able to see how I can justify making money from the sale of a module, without being obliged to contribute a part of what I make (however that may be defined) back to the community.

I'm also afraid that if the license is changed, then people who can make a living installing and customising XOOPS will have to increase their prices and then will no longer be competitive with commercial products.
And I'm afraid that the development of the core will suffer - why should someone programm the core for free, when he can make money from modules? And then the whole thing will die - slowly.

I only see one solution here and that is to either keep the community like it is, or start a new fork with a new license from the beginning.

Alan
19
raschmidt
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/24 13:29

  • raschmidt

  • Just popping in

  • Posts: 13

  • Since: 2004/10/9


With competition like php nuke and others it is not possible to change away from GPL. I just installed XOOPS and if I would have to 'buy' the packet as is I would have deleted it already. The lack of timely support, the instabilty of the system are not indicators for anything else as it is currently. An enthusiastically maintained toolkit. Every module (core) I touched has 'features'... There is a lot to do yourself when you start and run the system. I am still not convinced if it is the system for me as the amount of 'features' which still prevent a public use of my little site are quite overwhelming. A more strickt user license would erase it from disk right away. I would expect a more rounded system which does not require so much intervention. It's like a slider which you can adjust from GPL to tight licensing and the more you move that slider from GPL to tight commercial licensing the more the group pushing that slider has to take on by the means of product support, further development etc. or the system will not find interest. What I wan tto say is that I am happy with what it is right now and feel that I am obliged to report 'features'. If it is a more restricted environment then the erase button is the prefered method as I am not the QA department for some commercial entity. At least not for free. And if nobody pays for a module; sorry donates for a module..... maybe it's not that good or the 'funding drives' have not been started correctly .


My 5 Cents
Rainer
20
Draven
Re:Future Licensing of Xoops

  • 2004/10/26 18:33

  • Draven

  • Module Developer

  • Posts: 337

  • Since: 2003/5/28


I think you guys may be missing the point behind a dual license, you would have the CHOICE of downloading a GPL version or if you choose to use it in some type of a business offering (packed with your branding) then you could buy a commercial license allowing you to do so. I imagine, at least from my point of view, you would do the same with a module. DL the GPL version if you just want it for your site, buy a commercial license if you want to sell a bundled version to a client as your own.

This allows BOTH a GPL and commercial approach to the software. The code isn't closed per say, it is just a different license giving you the rights to use it in ways the GPL doesn't.

So XOOPS really wouldn't change at all, it would simply add the ability for the system to be used in a commercial offering (Hosting companies, design companies etc could all resell modified versions with support to their clients under their own brand).

Does this make sense?
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