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one may also assume that it is an obvious way for one to prey on our hedonistic nature.

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One must assume that you avoid Microsoft products like the plague which they are, then?

There are rumours of legislation which may be proposed in both the USA and Europe which will make charging for access to security patches a criminal offense. I would strongly support such laws. Calling it a "donation" won't change the situation, and prosecutors always go for the low-hanging fruit.

However, for anything else, giving extra care or earlier access to those who have donated is not only perfectly acceptable, it's simple courtesy. One should thank those who have helped one, and that's an obvious way to do it.

Thank you to Scott and Herve for inserting some perspective and sense into this thread. I had unfortunately allowed myself to descend into a petty meaningless argument from which there was never going to be a victor. Thanks for the slap back into reality .

@Scott

Thanks for the advise regarding getting a professional legal opinion on this, but as this would cost me more than a weeks wage just to get an opinion from a decent IP lawyer here in Aus (and there are plenty of opinions already) I don't see the real value in it. Especially with bills to pay and a family to support.

If anyone chooses to actually proceed legal action against me for my involvement with AMS (which is their choice) then all it will ultimately result in is AMS becoming a fully private developed module to which the general XOOPS community have no access to. The only winner in a situation like this would be the lawyers.

I am thinking that as of the next release of AMS I might word my News post to make a clear distinction between a donation and an early access fee, even though I don't see their being that much of a distinction in this case. From here, what the "early access fee" will be paying for is something like support, and access to restricted sections of my website. This would bring the AMS model more into line with what Catz suggested. As this would effectively be paying for a service there would be obligations to go with it on my part, which might effect cost. I'll have to have a good think about it.

Hopefully if nothing else this thread has shown how one piece of text (the GPL) can produce so many different interpretations. I think Scott was on the right track when he said that people only see what they want to see in the GPL. I personally don't think anyone is as blinded as that, but people certainly do only search for passages that support their argument.

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From GNU.org FAQ

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Best of both world. I get to spend my department's budget on OSS.

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AMEN!

Well someone could pay you to modify/enhance the module. It is my understanding that you (or the payer) are not under any obligation to release that modification to the community.

However, if the mod was also released then it becomes GPL...and thus free for others to modify and enhance. That's is the spirit of open source development IMHO. Free speech not free beer...

And that is exactly the spirit I want to see. There will be many themes and modules being developed by capable folks for fun and for personal goals that are useful to the community. Or even to showcase talents...

However, there are folks (like me) who don't want to code in that depth - so I'm happy to pay for my development and release it back so that others can build on my contributions in that way.

I'm glad this discussion has turned productive....

Dan

Thats what is being debated here. As far as I have read in the GPL you could charge for the code even if you received it free. As long as no restrictions of usage are inforced.

Also the way I read it you could obtain GPL software, make it available for download and charge for support of the software.
Again no restrictions on the user usage, and the user is free to distribute the software. That is copyleft, you give up the copyright to the said software.

Obviously if the original was freely the available, the updated would also have to be?

As long as the software can be aquired from someone, anyone, you are free to do what you wish with the software.

So in other words if the said software is available somewhere you can have it modified to suit your needs.

As long as the modified module continues GPL, and all credits remain.

Here's a question which relates directly to this topic.

Say there is a module, which was coded by another coder, who has given up on it. And I wanted to pay a developer to enhance the original.

How would I stand legally - and in the spirit of GPL - on this?

From the user stand point, I don't see any license questions here. I'm not using AMS and I'm not going to use it in the near future. On the other hand, I would have been gladly using stable version of WF-section 2, for example, if it was published uder the same conditions. XOOPS really lacks some modules and some are not developed anymore and maybe this is the way to speedup development.

If developer need more time for development and money can buy it, than why not, especialy if he's getting paid for hobby and at the same time contributing to the community. If there is a necessity for some to use specific module and are willing to pay small amount for that, there is no problem. Others can wait reasonable time for donation free version.

But there is a problem, if core developers choose this model for their work, who knows what will happen. Core don't work without modules and modules don't work without core. Would module developers wait a month to get donation free version to test if their modules work with new version of the core or are they going to pay for every new release? And what about users, would they wait another month more to get free version of module? Hm, I defended AMS model above, but yet I don't know, what future will bring, if this is spread around.