By kulfi on
Could someone explain to me how Drupal's GPL policy affects contributions (modules/themes)? Do all contributions have to be licensed under GPL as well? It gets especially confusing with themes. There are themers offering themes under non-GPL:
http://www.xweb.com.au/drupal
http://ichris.ws/drupal/themes
http://neemtree.com.au/drupal-theme-cutline
http://coffee.geek.nz/tags/drupaltheme.html
And there are inconclusive discussions regarding porting non-GPL templates to Drupal themes:
http://drupal.org/node/161082
http://www.nabble.com/Porting-Creative-Commons-designs-tf4257497.html
Could folks with better understanding of Drupal/GPL clarify this?
Comments
Read an old thread that didn't really help
I went through the entire discussion at http://drupal.org/node/30708, which doesn't really resolve anything. Given that most of that thread was 2 years ago, has there been any resolution on licensing requirements for modules and themes?
Went through this entire
Went through this entire thread http://drupal.org/node/37504 as well. Could someone explains whether
(1) modules created for commercial redistribution have to be GPL'd
(2) themes created for commercial redistribution have to be GPL'd
and, less importantly,
(3) whether the decision to go with PHPTemplate was in order to influence theme licensing
High Risk
Regarding commercial modules:
I was about to post an identical question for my company - since you haven't received a clarifying answer, I'll post my own findings. Forgive me ahead of time if I'm overlooking some key documentation.
I wanted to use Drupal as a platform to distribute my own IP protected modules. I wanted to treat these modules as a software product that I could exchange for money, just like an application for Windows, or acommercial plug-in for Photoshop. Although it seems to me that Drupal's GPLv2 license would support this, it also seems that roughly 4/5ths of the developers intend that all modules MUST GPL'ed. Also, there does not seem to be any exceptions in the license distributed with Drupal to contradict this observation.
Although I think that you could create a non-GPL'd/proprietary module and win a court trial if sued, you would also be going against the explicit intention of many developers. Many developers clearly interpreted the license, correctly or not, to include completely independently developed modules to be considered a derived work and to therefore fall under the umbrella of GPLv2. To develop a software-as-product Drupal module would to be act in bad-faith against much of the Drupal developer community.
There is a seemingly minor exception (from a software-as-product perspective) that you can have a restrictive license for your module, but that you must also have a GPLv2 license if your distribute it. So, you could sell your module once, say, to client A for $10,000. Client A would then have the right to post the module on their website. If your clients would never consider re-distributing your module, then the GPL question is effectively mute. If your module is widely attractive though, and distribution wouldn't overly hurt Client A, then client A would have little motivation to actively guard against further distribution. It might be quite difficult to ever find a client B.
You could perhaps quibble about writing a wrapper or rpc front-end to a web service.
Unfortunately, enough of core developers apparently intended that all modules developed for Drupal be GPL compatible, that it would be very risky to build a business based upon retaining IP rights to Drupal compatible modules.
Perhaps an individual developer could sneak under the radar, but any company with a commercially successful module would surely end up in court, or otherwise always have a Sword a Damocles hanging over their collective heads.
Templates seem to fall under a different intent/discussion.
Unfortunately, although I like Drupal, legal risks dictate that I develop my proprietary system on a more business compatible platform.
It seems that the Drupal community has become silent on your question because they do not have a clear answer. Their lack of an answer is your answer. The community is divided and leans heavily against proprietary modules.
Good luck - I hope be happy to be proven wrong.
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JJ
From
From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html:
You are correct in that there are friendlier licensing schemes, like BSD, but what you are attempting to do may be possible depending on how you design your software.
And the Drupal community does tend to advocate contribution of code back to the community because that is in the spirit of GPL and member contributions is one of the things that has helped build Drupal into a strong vibrant project and community.
Generally speaking, if you
Generally speaking, if you are not distributing Drupal, you probably don't need to worry about it. If you are distributing GPL'd software then you are only allowed to charge a nominal fee covering the actual costs of distributing the code. When distributing by download, this cost is effectively $0.00
Any changes you make to GPL'd software does not need to be contributed back as long as you are not distributing the software. If you are distributing the software, you must include the GPL notification and the source code for the software. You are also not allowed to restrict the recipients rights to the code in a manner that would violate GPL, i.e. they can also make modifications and/or redistribute the source.
Anything checked into Drupal CVS and/or distributed from Drupal.org is covered by GPL.
Themes sold by companies and distributed on their own site may have their own licensing terms, however the code for the themes may be covered by GPL, e.g. phptemplate. Any themes on Drupal.org are covered by GPL.
You also need to be careful of other software licenses, if applicable. That is why TinyMCE and other software are linked to by the site but not distributed by the site.
For a pretty good summary, especially regarding themes and associated works:
http://jeff.viapositiva.net/archives/2006/02/drupal_and_the_gpl_as_i_und...
BTW, I am not a lawyer and there may be details in GPL that would make some of my above statements inaccurate. Also the specific terms depends on which version of GPL Drupal distributes under, of which I am not sure, can affect the licensing terms.
You may also want to check:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
http://www.fsf.org
http://www.groklaw.net
My understanding is that
My understanding is that until there's a court case on this, the jury's still out.
Some people claim that modules and themes for GPLed content systems like WordPress and Drupal must be GPLed themselves. Others claim that they can be licensed in any way as long as GPLed code isn't being directly copied into the module/theme.
The jury is still out, but...
There is a nearly identical thread happening over at Joomla, but with a key difference. That difference is the 'intent' of the copyright holders. At Joomla, the discussion is basically, "Hey, I just read our GPL license real-careful-like, and maybe 3rd party commercial module are not allowed. Oops." Then a bunch of their original developers ring in about how that was certainly was NOT the original intent. You can also see commercial modules listed on the "Editor's Picks" of best modules. This contrasts with Drupal, where there is subdued discussion about maybe commercial modules (AKA - modules with tight IP) are maybe ok because of how GPL reads, perhaps with technical loopholes, but you'll really find out once any number of original developers take you to court because it certainly WAS the original intent to forbid non-GPL'ed modules.
As a business person picking a platform, I guess its a difference between expecting a fight if I choose platform A versus expecting happy-cheers-of-encouragement from platform B.
I would be grateful for supporting evidence to the contrary
Also, as a point-of-order: Drupal is under GPLv2, which is a world apart from GPLv3.
I much prefer Drupal's
I much prefer Drupal's banning of commercial modules from Drupal.org's project pages. When I was toying with Joomla, I'd constantly get linked to paid extensions as a solution to my problem - most without any sort of trial install or code sample. Hard to get a site up and running that way, let alone learning about how to code good modules.
Well the
Thanks for mentioning which version of GPL it is, I was pretty sure it wasn't GPLv3 and I agree that they are worlds apart.
The FreeSoftwareFoundation is very specific about how GPL can be used and provides a lot of guidance. Of course it is up to interpretation and the interpretation they provide is the way they want it to be, but there are several cases where GPL has been upheld. Go check out Groklaw.net for the details.
Whether those cases apply to the specifics you listed, well check Groklaw.net and see or research the law cases yourself. Some people just want the benefit of GPL software without having to contribute back their work or opening up their work.
You will always find people that are willing to interpret licenses so they are favorable to a particular party, it does not mean that those people or interpretations are correct or supportable by case law. SCO vs. IBM, while not a GPL case, is an example of people that intentionally misinterpret licenses for their own benefit.
Chef vs. Turkey
I'm totally in favor of contributing back to the community, the question is whether or not I'm required to contribute everything?
To use a nationalistic analogy, its the difference between "fighting for your country" and "dying for your country."
It is said well here:
From http://www.bridgeblogging.com/raylee/2007/09/index.html
It is Thanksgiving - does Drupal allow non-Turkeys?
:)
I didn't mean to convey that
I didn't mean to convey that you need to be committed, I was just referring to the fact that some people want the benefit of a licensed work without following the terms of the license. I could have worded it a bit better to make it appear that it was a binary situation, it was not my intent to convey the impression that only turkey's are allowed.
I am a developer too and have a background in the ISV world where one of the ways we made our money was selling the code and would agree that I would not want to have had to open up all my code. When working in that world I would have found that requirement a deal breaker for using GPL'd code. However, we did use open source code for some things, Apache and JBoss would be two examples.
It can be possible for proprietary code, or code using different licensing terms, to work with GPL'd code but it is tricker. I would point to some of the Drupal modules that require you to download some of the code separately and provide link to said code as an example of how they can coexist. Some of the linked code is even the classic proprietary, charge model but can still be used along with GPL'd code.
As to your original question, it depends it the big answer but as long as you are not distributing things, e.g. its running off of servers and not source being sent to a client, your fine. For themes, it's a bit more complicated, but I believe that your graphics, css, etc. fall outside of GPL as long as you are distributing them outside of Drupal.org. If I recall correctly, all themes contributed and distributed through Drupal.org are automatically GPL'd, though a themer could provide a better and more accurate answer than I.
I would agree that it's probably better to be a chef than a Turkey.
Well said.
Thanks for your thoughtful insights.
See development thread on this point.
For a great deal of discussion on this point, see this thread on the development list.
--keith
Not automatically
Themes and Modules on Drupal.org are not automatically licensed under the GPL. They should be GPL in order to be posted on Drupal.org however.
This is mainly an issue with themes, as they are often ports of existing non-GPL themes. When such themes are posted on Drupal.org, the port author, nor Drupal.org can change the license of such a theme. Only the original author can change the license.
When a non-GPL theme is found among all the Drupal.org projects, it is removed, unless we get a confirmation that the original author (re)licensed the theme under the GPL.
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But to be clear...
...Just because Drupal is GPL does not mean that all of the code that I write for my clients should be GPL. They have a right to use their website without their code (that I get paid to write) being put out into the public.
We all agree on that don't we??
FAQ
Please read http://drupal.org/licensing/faq. Contact a lawyer for additional questions.
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Heine is quite correct--
Heine is quite correct-- software licensing is not a matter of "we all agree on that". It's a legal contract-- seek legal advice. How satisfied would your clients be if they ended up being sued because of a violation of the GPL?
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"God helps those who help themselves." - Ben Franklin
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Apparently not.
Apparently not.