Module / Theme License

By Cory Goodwin on 13 Oct 2009 at 16:39 UTC

I'm sure its be written but I cannot seem to find it.

What is Drupal's official stance on what license a module or theme must be if it is NOT hosted on Drupal.org?

Can you provide a link to the official statement?

Comments

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vm commented 13 October 2009 at 16:43

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=drupal+licensing&aq=1&oq=...

http://drupal.org/licensing/faq

http://drupal.org/node/272652

I found a designer that makes

Cory Goodwin commented 13 October 2009 at 17:23

I found a designer that makes website templates for wordpress and releases them under creative commons license. I asked him if it was OK to port to Drupal and he said it was, except he wants the license to remain CC and not GPL. I would hate to lose this opportunity to get Drupal some quality themes.

One part that intrigues me is

When distributing your own module or theme, therefore, the GPL applies to any pieces that directly interact with parts of Drupal that are under the GPL.

Do style sheets and images directly interact with Drupal or are they considered a layer outside of Drupal? Would this mean that I could release the tpl files under GPL and hold back the style sheet and images to release under CC?

I want to get these themes for the Drupal community so any help is appreciated.

_

WorldFallz commented 13 October 2009 at 17:38

The particular part you want to pay attention to is from paragraph 2 of http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q7:

However, when distributing your own Drupal-based work, it is important to keep in mind what the GPL applies to. The GPL on code applies to code that interacts with that code, but not to data. That is, Drupal's PHP code is under the GPL, and so all PHP code that interacts with it must also be under the GPL or GPL compatible. Images, JavaScript, and Flash files that PHP sends to the browser are not affected by the GPL because they are data. However, Drupal's JavaScript, including the copy of jQuery that is included with Drupal, is itself under the GPL as well, so any Javascript that interacts with Drupal's JavaScript in the browser must also be under the GPL or a GPL compatible license.

So you should be ok. However, if you're planning to host the themes on drupal.org you there may or many not be a problem depending on how http://groups.drupal.org/node/24465 gets resolved.

As always with these types of questions: ianal and you should always check with one on licensing issues.