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By ilya1st on
Hello - I see a new site http://danay.co.uk/ - they sell themes for drupal.
But all the themes must be GPL licensed.
Does the siteowner violate GPL license selling themes before publish them using GPL?
Comments
All the themes made
All the themes made available on Drupal.org must be GPL, in the wild any developer can do as they please.
Edit: re-reading my post I realise this could be taken the wrong way, I certainly did not mean we can disregard the licensing rules, but rather under GPL developers are free to modify and re-distribute code.
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Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
No, GPL permits that.
No, GPL permits that. Actually you can create a custom version of a theme for exclusive use by yourself. GPL rules don't apply if your work isn't published somewhere. Think of a linux-powered server with custom security system, publishing the source code could be only a great way to exploit it.
Anyway you can read the license.txt file shipped with every project on drupal.org for better explanation.
I HOPE you will understand it, i'm good at reading english, not so much at writing it :P
@jmburnz: I remember a drie's post explaining that every theme using phptemplate MUST use GPL license, i will do some search, anyway
Now that I did not know, if
Now that I did not know, if you can dig that out I would most appreciate it, I'll dig around for it also. Cheers.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
bad example
While you are correct that the GPL does not force sharing your code with the community unless you "distribute" it, your example is off base and hits on a pet peeve of mine, so excuse me while I address it.
I think you are looking at it in the wrong way. Security by obscurity is not security. Linux security systems are published as Free Software under the GPL all the time. Keeping it secret hardly equals security. In fact it is quite the opposite -- by releasing security code for review, we ensure that it is truly secure. The only non-public part of a GPL security system should be the public and private keys used to secure the data.
Also, to get back to the topic of this thread -- this sort of sale of GPL code would qualify as distribution from what I understand, thereby forcing the author to share their code with the community (but they don't have to share their graphics and other visual elements, as those do not fall under control of the GPL)
Nothing is violated
Hey there Guys, I am danay.co.uk developer.
Please be confident that Danay Themes would be sold under GPL license.
As you can see now, the site and themes are still under testings for bugs, so I wish to bring high quality themes for users.
Thus, taking into consideration this + the fact that officially the themes would be sold starting from august 1 2008 (as written everywhere on the site), at the moment I DO NOT violate any rules.
I will put information about Terms and Conditions and GPL this week. :)
So, how you find the theme by the way?
Cheers
grey area
Certainly charging for your themes is not in itself a violation of the GPL.
However, once I buy a GPL licensed theme from you, the GPL gives me the right to modify and redistribute that code for free.
This is why the standard method in the world of Free Software is that labor and services have value and cost while the code is free.
Except for CSS and Graphics
Well, I am not agains the Danay Themes code which is of Drupal is distributed (node.tpl, page, template, etc)...
BUT....
Taking into consioderation that CSS and media files could be a separate web page withour drupal, legally I am against re-distribution or resale of css code and media files of my themes.
On another hand... ethical issie - one makes software - and sells it... others use this software and some of this "others" use piracy software - at the of the day - not paying the software authour will result into situation when software author will stop making this software - because he is not paid for his job - BUT he still has to pay bills :)
See, guys, I am not a microsoft and not eager to control my themes.... i just want my many many many hours spent in the evenings after the main work to be respected - which means 1. paid, 2. css/media is not distributed over the internet.
P.S. What I wrote here - IS NOT RIGHT OR WRONG- this is just my personal opinion.... so please no hollywars on these issues.... at the end I am trying to make my contribution to Drupal project.
Thanks
in terms of right and wrong
I think that the GPL is rather clear and where it is not we have groups like the Free Software Foundation to help decipher things.
It sounds like you have clearly and deliberately taken the GPL into account. From a simple legal perspective I don't think anyone can tell you that you are wrong.
The graphics and CSS (where it does not directly interact with drupal or use drupal-specific tags) are clearly not covered by the GPL. Where there could be debate however is about how your business model fits into the community and whether or not it is a model that has been tried before without success.
well, I think that business
well, I think that business model would feet the community and its needs. I have 2 drupal based projects, one of them has grown up to a 9200 community, and difficulties I faced - is lack of good drupal themes which I could modify and use for my drupal projects.
There is always risk that somethig new won't work or won't fit the needs, but one should always take a risk about that. So, as for now with the Danay.co.uk runing only from this sunday, I got 4 orders for Media theme to buy.
A model is: do what you do perfectly and people will like that :)
:)
don't take my comments as being too critical. I really do wish you the best of luck.
If you provide solid and reliable services and make it a bit easier for novice users to have a nice looking theme, I think that is good for all of us.
If you make it less scary for people to start using Free Software, the entire community benefits.
.
IANAL and all that...
The general consensus seems to be that the code in themes must follow GPL but the graphics and CSS do not. So when you sell a theme, you can tell them what they can do with the pretty part but not the underlying code. The EULA part on Top Notch Themes explains it pretty well.
Michelle
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Essentially that's the way I
Essentially that's the way I have always viewed it, thanks for the link Michelle - nice clarification of a thorny issue.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
Yeap thanks - good info
Yeap thanks - good info about drupal themes legal issues - i would probably take that as a sample :)