Dear Fellow Drupalers,

What is your take on Commercial drupal CMS Solutions & Drupal based products such as premium drupal modules, drupal themes & on-demand drupal support?

We are planning to release few ready to use Drupal CMS Solutions, but we need community (your) feedback on the commercialization of the same. We love drupal & respect it`s copyright & GPL licence, so obviously, even the commercial versions are going to remain open source drupal based solutions but with a price to pay for download & use.

We know that there are already some awesome products like open publish, open atrium & Managing News etc. which are following the footprints of mother-ship drupal and are absolutely free of cost. But we are talking about various complex CMS Solutions such as corporate website setup, social networking solutions, ecommerce solutions, classifieds/directory solutions and few more commonly used concepts, which are common to use & high in demand, but no reliable ready to use solution or recipe.

We will be providing more details shortly on what exactly we mean by commercialization of Drupal. But more importantly, we would like to hear back from you guys about your take on the idea of "Future of drupal as : a Framework (as it is) & : CMS products base with commercial support (as we are purposing).

We will be replying to your feedback & suggestions & will be making our decision based on outcome of this post & your responses.

Looking forward towards your comments.

Comments

ddorian’s picture

provide hosted sites with aegir and paid support?
just look at other companies how they are doing it

univate’s picture

This is probably not the best place to post this discussion, maybe the distributions group on groups.drupal.org would get some better feedback:
http://groups.drupal.org/distribution-profiles

I personally don't really understand how you can sell a GPL licensed product when the users are freely able to re-distribute the code under that license. I would suggest a better model is to giving away the solution in the same way open atrium does and sell commercial support for the product. As the developers you are going to be the best place people can go for support needs. Custom themes might be another option to provided value added services around your solutions.

websule’s picture

Thanks for your thoughts.

I have requested moderators to review the post & move it to the appropriate forums, if they find it irrelevant here. We thought it belongs here because it involves paid services & solutions and people associated with them (buyers & providers). You could notice it easily because it was here.

We have started this thread to evaluate the most legit & effective business model for providing drupal solutions. for example, What you are doing here http://www.univate.com.au/content/subscription-websites, can be Best & most reliable drupal installation/module (or a set of modules) for clients seeking subscription/membership websites.

kaakuu’s picture

Drupal lacks social netting solution.

See the features of Facebook and Orkut, byte by byte. I am not asking to duplicate. Note that all practical features of Yahoo are available in Gmail and vice versa. Similary all current features that Facebook and Orkut offer should be available in this Social Drupal solution. Including Gadgets or Apps.

For comparison you can see scripts like Buddypress, Elgg, Boonex Dolphin etc - these are free solutions.
Have a look at socialengine.net, phpfox, dzoic which sells at $300 approx average price.
Collectively all these have the hugest market among sold opensource scripts and earn much more money than Acquia or similar start-ups.

If the Social Drupal package have all those feaures and if anything newish in extra, at a little bit of lower price, this can really be a very, very high revenue earner. Only by selling the script. Support, installation, maintainance can fetch you even much more extras.

The other aspect is providing a stable version and support for it. For example, except certain social netting and ajax aspects, Drupal 6 is a complete version, along with its contrib modules, so far as features to the end-users or site-members are concerned. As such site-owners will like to continue indefinitely with this version with whatever modifications they have made and with very occasional feature addition in the form of modules. If your commercial venture can support a "legacy" but actually head-ache free version for the site-owners so that they do not have to upgrade at a frantic pace, which the Devs consider normal, you will be blessed with more money :)

websule’s picture

Thanks for your well written answer. You share our thought (for starting this thread,) to propose possibility of existence for commercial arm of drupal. Commercial products to be more precise.

bojanz’s picture

I'd skip the premium modules idea. It's bad.

1) It creates some negativity in people viewing your site. There's no way to trial a module before buying, and everyone knows there's a ton of great modules on d.o for free. That would be my reaction too.
2) You can't really earn much (saw on one site modules for 10$. How many do you think were bought)?
3) You lose all the benefits of d.o which are worth money (security review by the security team, update notifications for users, issue tracking and the whole community as testers etc etc).

I'd just concentrate on the support. There's a reason why everyone is giving stuff for free while charging for support, you create goodwill while charging where it counts (compare a 50$-150$ hour of support, with 15 downloads of some 10$ module...)

websule’s picture

I agree with your all 3 points and the fact that there is a reason to give away for free and that reason is worth thousands of dollars. Still we are trying to find out a way "to be able to maintain & support our product" by assigning full time dedicated developers for the issues & upgrades.

aidanlis’s picture

I think it's a great idea, and it's definitely a gap in the market. If I had more time I would have started something similar.

What I'd really like is premium versions of existing modules. For example, being able to pay $1000 per year per module to have all of my bug reports fixed immediately.

coderintherye’s picture

Promising more and delivering nothing. I wonder how many more years you and your "team" can spend making posts on d.o. doing that, meanwhile ripping off code from other projects and passing it off as your own.

websule’s picture

Here is a list of Proposed Drupal CMS Solutions, please suggest the sweet prices for them :

1) Professional CMS (highly customizable with all of the features below out of the box)
- WYSIWYG
- Image Manager
- Blogs, Forums
- Image Galleries
- Automatic backups
- Webforms
- Portfolio Manager
- Advanced Contact Us
& many more extra plugins to choose from directory.
Our proposed price : $99 (with basic support)

2) Professional Social Networking Solution (again highly customizable with all of the features below out of the box)
- Custom & Advanced user profiles.
- User Photos, Videos, Audio etc.
- Blogs, Forums
- Image Galleries
- Add as friends, friends of friends etc.
- Private messaging.
- Groups
- Events
- Classifieds
- Userpoints
- Chat (site-wide or friends only)
- Facebook style Wall for user profiles
- Bookmarks & Favourite users
- User & Network Activity Streams
- User Locations & Gmap plugins
- Customizable signup & login options.
& many more extra plugins to choose from directory.
Our proposed price : $299 (with basic support)

3) Professional E-commerce Package
- Standard Ubercart based preconfigured store with image support for products
- Various types of products to select
- Digital downloads
- Memberships
- Premium Content
& many more features being proposed by drupal users.
Our proposed price : $199 (with basic support)

Please feel free to suggest more features and correct pricing.

ddorian’s picture

since they are gpl i can buy them from you and sell them myself or give them away
so you wont get many sales
give them for free and offer themes and support for a monthly/hour/yearly fee

websule’s picture

Yes, We are aware of this issue... that`s why this thread.
Now, Could you please suggest some right way out to have some consistent income from the work we do to ensure steady & good health of the solutions we provide.
We would love to give away it for free to the community, but how can a company dedicate most of their resources to maintain a product which they are not getting any direct revenue from?
I understand the problem is not very simple & the solution is even more complex. hope to have some other way outs like donations or sponsorships, May be!

WorldFallz’s picture

As others have already pointed out, there are already many businesses doing very well with drupal-- the best way to sustain a drupal business is with services, not code. Its really that simple.

ddorian’s picture

create a hosted version with aegir (software as a service) and MAYBE (but i dont recomment it) add more features to the hosted version

gloscon’s picture

If you want to compete and excel, one way is to compete with features that will differentiate you.

We also have hosted solutions at http://www.galaminds.com - where one can get instant drupal website up and running in 3 minutes with their own URL.

Where we make money is Support, Custom Themeing and Training.

WorldFallz’s picture

The major thing you need to keep in mind is that drupal and all drupal modules are GPL. Any business you create that distributes drupal code must also be GPL. Which means, anyone silly enough to pay you for your code is free to setup a site (or use drupal.org for that matter) to distribute it any way they like as long as they also adhere to the GPL. Business models that consist of selling drupal code really are pretty silly.

See http://drupal.org/licensing/faq for some great info.

websule’s picture

I am little surprise with your comment. Dries himself is in favour of commercially supported distributions with paid support.

bojanz’s picture

Free code and paid support, not paid code. You misunderstood Dries.

WorldFallz’s picture

You must have misread my comment-- free code with paid services is exactly what i'm advocating.

Of course you can setup whatever business model you like. What you can't do is relicense drupal or violate the terms of the GPL. And anyone to whom you sell your drupal code is entitled to the same rights as you and they can do whatever they wish with it-- except relicense it or violate the terms of the license. afaik, Dries has never advocated for anything else and I would challenge anyone who said otherwise to cite the quote. Indeed acquia, dries' company, is based on this business model.

kaakuu’s picture

For paid code ( if paid code is in the issue at all ) you need to develop some module or software as service like Mollom PLUS or Premium, based on Drupal, that can fetch you money. For this you need to plan such module or service and get paid-developers to work for you. Currently there is good demand for Social Networking module or software as service in an integrated module or package. Drupal lacks this. This can be built up with multitude of modules in Drupal but will still severely lack essential functions - so there is need for something CUSTOM built. This module or software service can have purchasers or paid subscriptions. How far this needs to be open-and-readable source I do not know. You can check out whether Mollom PREMIUM is open-and-readable source and follow that model. If you can develop this sort of product there is guaranteed market for this not just as purchase but also from the perspective of maintainability and support.

BTW, themes are also paid codes and WP and Joomla supposedly makes good money from these.

WorldFallz’s picture

There's lots of good info on this in the licensing faq. Mollom is a service but the drupal module to use that service is GPL and distributed right here on drupal.org.

With themes-- the php must be GPL. It's the images, js, and css (which for a theme, is the real content) that can be licensed differently. Also discussed in the faq.

There's no way around drupal module code being GPL and therefore redistributable by anyone in any method they desire.

Heine’s picture

There is a way around;

1. License the distribution / module / whatever under a non GPL license
2. Hope you don't get sued by the core developers
3. Profit

WorldFallz’s picture

lol, true that.

websule’s picture

I would like to thank you all for your feedbacks & comments so far. There seem to be a confused state of mind in our community members on how the commercial arm of drupal should grow, perhaps that`s why It`s not growing much. There are not any recognized paid products in drupal.
Have a look at wordpress, Woothemes and few paid plugins like all-in-one SEO are making huge profits offering premium solutions build on top of wordpress. Joomla has even higher acceptability for paid products (code, not just services) as there are more than few dozens of premium components(modules) and most of their themes are premium & paid. folks at Joomlart are getting really good turn over by selling membership to access their premium themes.

I thought of having a price for our Social Networking product that we will perhaps name : DrupSocio (I need to check with drupal association for any trademark conflict yet), because azrul network at jomsocial is making pretty good name, fame & money by doing the same in joomla.

I must admin that I feel "the friendly ecosystem of Joomla & wordpress is one of the biggest factors helping them reach a much bigger audience than drupal has been capable of (in spite of being best among three)". This can influence drupal reach by a significant magnitude.

It`s not about our products only, We can go either way now. But I would like to understand feasible & legitimate approach (business models) for drupal commercial solutions/products.

I would provide a list of possible business models shortly, which is working with other open source products successfully.

Thanks again.

Michelle’s picture

It's not confusing; it's pretty simple: the Drupal community favors selling services, not products. Selling GPL code isn't a good business module. Giving away the code and selling services is. There are many reason for this but a big one is that packaging up other peoples' code and selling it may be legal but will leave a bad taste with lots of people. As someone who has written a few social networking modules, I know I wouldn't appreciate someone packaging them up and selling them.

Michelle

Steven_NC’s picture

For many small (really small) businesses the biggest hurdle is system administration. Drupal takes a bit of time to get working, but it is buildable. We need help with the back end. Google Apps targets this market.

What they need is a Drupal Optimized server with good backup and restore capabilities. This is big worry for people whose business is not websites. Slicehost is great, but I would never attempt to install and maintain a linux installation for a public facing mission-critical server.

Take care of the security releases in the background. I'm not sure how to handle patches etc. Offer a version migration service. D6 to D7 will be needed.

Build a great module/feature set/distribution. Drupal Commons will be a huge hit. Open Atrium fits the needs of many businesses. I am more likely to go to Commerce Guys for a shopping cart, etc.

Have reasonable (understandable) pricing. Drupal Gardens is really slick and they keep adding to it, but their pricing structure is terrible.

Offer subscribers a good online training system and don't be timid about updating it. If they understand what features can be added, they will not resist paying for it.

I think there are several business models that can work well in the Drupalverse. You need to access your strengths and go with them.

Ravish’s picture

Brian Gardner (StudioPress) and Woo Themes launched premium Wordpress themes in 2007, the developer community did not accept it at first. Moreover, they were not even GPL licensed. There was an outcry in Wordpress community against them. Following that, most premium theme providers switched to GPL licensing.

Despite controversies, users voted for premium theme and plugins by buying them. Inspired by their success, hundreds of other developers started to sell premium themes and plugins. It is now the acceptable and in fact most popular business model among Wordpress community.

Matt Mullenweg once told me, they would not support premium themes. If he supported, developers would no more give out free GPL themes & plugins. He pointed me towards Joomla, there were hardly any nice free themes & modules available.

Now two years forward, premium products are not just accepted but embraced by the Wordpress community - http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/commercial/

The quality and number of themes & modules has increased, even the free ones. This also helped to boost the adoption and ecosystem of Wordpress.

Today, state of Drupal is like Wordpress was in 2007. There are hardly any out of the box solutions available for Drupal.

Ubercart, Open Publish and Open Atrium are the only ones I can think of. Many of the popular Drupal modules are patches and hole-fillers. Thankfully, these hole-filler modules are going to be in Drupal 7 core.

Drupal 7 and distributions will spawn a new array of solutions built upon Drupal. Soon, we will have more like Ubercarts and Open Atriums.

If commercial solutions can help fuel this ecosystem and growth, Drupal community will accept them eventually.

This debate will not stop your customers from buying your product. If your product is awesome, they will vote for you by buying your product.

kaakuu’s picture

Well said.
That list even comes with haiku :)
Wit and humor is what they do not miss there.

Ravish’s picture

kaakuu’s picture

Thanks for the link. Very nice blog.
Though off-topic, I think "most of the problems will" NOT "be gone in Drupal 7". The admin panel is more overwhelming and complex, and drupal strongpoints have been diluted. Drupal still lacks blogging as in Wordpress out of the box. And it brings nothing new that I can offer to the visitors to my site :/

Heine’s picture

In http://www.websule.com/druplus-drupal-professional-cms I see

 Remove Credits, +$25.00

What are these credits? Does this line mean that people are not allowed to remove credits without paying?

I also see the field "Quantity". Do you host these distributions as a service? Or do you provide downloads? If you do provide downloads, what kind of license do you use to necessitate multiple downloads?

websule’s picture

Ohh, Sorry for that.. we are actually offline & under rapid development. We went online to test something.
Also, based on our detailed studies, reviews & surveys, We have decided to release all our installation profiles, modules & themes for free here on drupal.org (for which we have requested CVS account) & would consolidate on services & support.

What you saw will never be there, once we are back, that was just elaboration of attributes on ubercart to a new developer.

coderintherye’s picture

It's amazing how every time you steal someone's code and try to sell it as your own, and then get caught doing it, you then say 'oh, sorry we were just testing'.

I can't imagine why you haven't been banned yet.

yelvington’s picture

It's amazing how every time you steal someone's code and try to sell it as your own, and then get caught doing it, you then say 'oh, sorry we were just testing'.

Do you have proof that any theft was going on? If you're going to be a Drupal advocate, you should refrain from making unfounded accusations. Selling copies of Drupal is not theft.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

coderintherye’s picture

Perhaps, after reading the below you will see my point of view.

Selling is the wrong choice of words. Marketing would have been a much better choice of words. I am referring to historical actions, and yes there is proof, not unfounded accusations:

That is the whole point of being a Drupal advocate, to stand up against people who try to abuse it.

Please see: http://drupal.org/node/827586
Especially: http://drupal.org/node/827586#comment-3095654

If you can get a hold of the "w3bsule" modules they committed, you will see they were code directly ripped off from other modules and then attributed back to websule accounts. I am not referring to their efforts to sell a packaged Drupal solution as stealing (something I'm confident is a moot point as they never seem to produce any software, just talk about it). The code theft and then attributing it to themselves is what I refer to as stealing. This in line with the GPL.

For further background, this is what I originally sent off to the site admins:

"All this ran across my desk cause I get Drupal e-mail alerts and saw this today http://drupal.org/node/826854

So there are is one or several users which go under the username "drupalpoint"

4 weeks ago they created a slew of modules which are copy paste of other modules and seem to be nothing more than to spam for their website. For instance, websule.com is there website and so they have created 'w3bsule' module which has an official release but is described as 'coming soon'. You will notice from the issue I opened or if you look at their code that the module is a copy paste from the SEO checklist module. I have not looked through the others, but I imagine the code is again the same copy paste of others' work. In addition to below, there is also the misleading "Drupal Power Blogging" module they have created which seems to be non-existent.
Project w3bsule drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Image w3eme new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Project w3Socio new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Image w3bsule new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Image w3eme new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Image W3Socio new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 15 hours ago
Project w3CMS new drupalpoint 0 4 weeks 16 hours ago
Image W3CMS new

You'll notice too from another user's comment on the d.o. thread, that their website is listed as containing active threats by McAfee's SiteAdvisor.

So I dug a little deeper, and saw this post from '08: http://drupal.org/node/203385 in which they again make interesting claims, and you actually had posted in noting their copyright infringement on the Drupal name. I'm not sure if they are in compliance now, but you can see from further posts that there is certainly some question of their legitimacy.

yelvington’s picture

The original poster's question was along the lines of "what does the Drupal community think," and if that's the question, in general, the answer is always going to be "stick with the community, respect others' work, interact in a positive manner, and post your code on d.o. under the GPL."

Doing something like renaming existing modules and obscuring true authorship would be considered tacky and rude and highly frowned on. Nobody should have to be told that, but it happens.

If the question is "what's allowable under the GPL," then the answer is quite different. You have the right to fork, rename, derive, invert, rebrand, repackage or sell -- so long as the result, if distributed, is still GPL.

If these guys want to take a bunch of contrib modules and change their names and sell them as downloadable tools, then that's their right. They don't have to preserve names or credits. GPL doesn't have an "advertising" or "attribution" clause like some other licenses. Nor does it consider the original programmer's ego.

Generally we don't have to worry about such issues, because the economics of open source disfavor forking. We all benefit from the contributions of the crowd, so heading away from the crowd backfires. Most such forks fail quickly.

There are some great examples of forks, and Apache (a "patchy" derivation of the old NCSA httpd) would have to lead the list. Successful forks tend to follow some patterns. One of the greatest causes is power struggles -- Mambo becoming Joomla is an example of that, and MariaDB would be a very different example.

Sometimes businesses have objectives that cause forking, such as Google taking Ubuntu and turning it into Chrome OS. It's pretty well known that Google started with an Ubuntu base, and that Ubuntu is derived from Debian, but I've never seen anything in Chrome OS that explains that.

David Strauss and the Four Kitchens chefs forked Drupal core for technical reasons; that fork (Pressflow) isn't going to drift away or lose its Drupal-ness, not because of any prohibition, but because it wouldn't make economic sense. Why would you use it if you didn't know where it came from and couldn't trust that it would be compatible with Drupal contrib modules?

If the original poster is interested in how to make money in open source, I would suggest that the same rules apply as in all forms of commerce: Start by creating value. Quit worrying about whether it's a product or a service.

What are you doing that solves problems for people?

Look at the success stories. One rather obvious Drupal problem is that it's a huge pile of parts that have to be assembled in order to do anything really interesting. Another obvious problem is Drupal's scalability and performance issues. So you see Drupal Gardens (hosted service), Pressflow (Drupal patched for performance), and Pantheon Mercury (hosted but also downloadable). Managing News is an example of tackling the pile-of-parts problem by integrating and configuring something like 30 components, with added value in special modules. There are many others.

One thing that won't work is posting a bunch of claims. This is a do-ocracy. The thing that will earn the respect of the Drupal community is actually creating value. Conveniently, that's the first step toward making money.

WorldFallz’s picture

One question I've always had though-- it's a well known fact that the GPL does not invalidate the author's copyright (http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q3). It's often sited as one of the reasons why drupal could never be relicensed-- because no one could possibly track down all the copyright holders to get their permission to relicense it. So how does that fit with someone taking someone else's copyrighted code and claiming it as their own? Just because the GPL doesn't include an attribution requirement, doesn't mean one is allowed to claim someone else's copyrighted code as their own.

coderintherye’s picture

Thanks, well said, though I agree with WorldFallz concerns regarding copyright.

In concern to the original poster, you are quite right, this is a do-ocracy, and the problem which I have been trying to bring up is the original poster claims much and does little, and the little code I have seen come forth has been code directly ripped from modules posted on drupal.org. To me, this weakens the community and makes Drupal look bad. Now that more of the community is aware of the issue though and that is all that needs to be accomplished. I look forward to seeing some original contributions come forward from websule. Code speaks.

websule’s picture

Mr. Kevin O'Brien,

You are going way to personal and attacking our company for regional competition, with very offending comments.. without any proof or base.
stealing code in drupal? do you understand something called GPL? for your kind information, Drupal is open-source n GPL.

Yet to answer you properly this time, please show me which piece of code I have stolen from you or anyone & have uploaded here as my code?
I have just submitted an request application for CVS account.. which is awaiting upload of our first code for review. Did i gave you any code personally or exclusively taht you found that I have stolen?

Don`t ruin the beautiful spirit of open source & sharing, working with each other keeping aside all personal benefits & professional competition aside to help the project we love (Drupal) grow.

I hope you will think twice before posting anything stupid like this again n again n again on all topics started by us.

If you still have problems with us, please call me or send me a message using contact tab and I can call you and talk to you.

coderintherye’s picture

Please see my above comment: http://drupal.org/node/863776#comment-3360534

Also, I am not in competition with you, I do very few external projects outside of my main job. I'd gladly give up the few external projects I have in order to see Drupal better prosper.

I have no personal qualms, especially given your account is made up of numerous people. My qualms are that the websule account is improperly using Drupal as a marketing tool for their company at the detriment to the community. My above post makes a good case for that. The Drupal site administrators also found instances where the websule account has violated terms. I'm confident anyone reading the above will

I'd love to see websule become a contributing partner to Drupal, but you have been saying since 2008 that you are contributing to Drupal, yet no code has been produced, only taking other people's code and marketing it as your own. And this has been multiple times and said to just be mistakes on your developers' part. (again as I have linked to above and is in the CVS records, I am not making this up, also have the w3bsule module code that was committed with external code from other projects and attributing it as its own) if someone wants me to post it).

okday’s picture

Is it possible to see your work?

Do you have demos of your work?

websule’s picture

Yes Sure!

We are going live by first week of September with all our projects (25), products & solutions.

I will send you a message with preview release shortly.

Thanks for your interest.

parasox’s picture

How can it be GPL if you pay to download and/or use it?

If Drupal ever goes the paid module route we're going to end up with two and three versions of everything, and a LOT less people will be inclined to build (and contribute!!) modules to the community.

It's the whole give/take relationship really. Need a penny, take a penny, have a penny, give a penny.

yelvington’s picture

You are misinformed about the GPL.

There is no prohibition against selling copies of GPL software. Never has been.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

websule’s picture

Many people here really need to read & understand GPL license carefully or ask someone to explain it to them.

cmcintosh’s picture

I think that you could setup a service that would allow you to charge for Premium Themes and/or Modules. Here is my take on how you would have to set something like this up, and in fact i am in the process of it for my lower end clients.

1. you would want to setup a hosting service / platform (Aegir is great for this)
2. You would want to setup a way for Clients to demo the theme or module, again Aegir can help in this.
3. you would then want a method of letting customers pay to use the module on their site, you would have to be clear and let the clients know whether or not you would allow that right to be transferred to other sites they may host with you now or in the future. Additionally you would need to setup something that would place the Theme, or Module into the clients Sites Directory. Services API works good with this and you can do some amazing things with it regarding Aegir.

On the idea of stealing code. As long as your Premium modules do not use, reuse, or build on existing GPL code i believe you can license them under anything you want. Seeing as the method above avoids any sort of distro'ing of the code then you dont really need to worry about the licensing. What you would be selling is a system that puts all of that together. Additionally if you want to be sooper cool, then I would add in some sort of Support module as part of any Aegir Site platform you offer. I have something i custom wrote that lets me have the site run some tests, package site reports / statistics, then emails them to me.

Chris McIntosh
(812) 250-4103 | cmcintosh@wembassy.com

WorldFallz’s picture

cmcintosh’s picture

http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q8

was what i was referring to.

Chris McIntosh
(812) 250-4103 | cmcintosh@wembassy.com

WorldFallz’s picture

I was referencing this part of your post:

As long as your Premium modules do not use, reuse, or build on existing GPL code i believe you can license them under anything you want.

Which, according to the faq, is not possible. Drupal modules are, by virtue of the fact of being a drupal module, derivative works. If you write a drupal module it must be GPL (if distributed that is-- as with all GPL code). According to the faq.

kaakuu’s picture

Are all GPL codes downloadable ( either free or paid) ?
Drupal Gardens is derivative work from Drupal. Where can I download it ?

Michelle’s picture

Read what she said: "if distributed". Gardens is hosted.

Michelle

kaakuu’s picture

I see! But is anything hosted not distributed too ? If it is not distributed it means I have not access to it. It is distributed via hosting rather than by selling directly ? Hosting is a form of distributed selling as far as I know but I am not sure.

In other words, premium module, which is derivative of Drupal. can be non GPLed if I make it available as a hosted option. This may be cool news to the needy.

ddorian’s picture

if u use any drupal function in your premium module than it is gpl
hosted is not downloaded just like gmail , basecamphq and many others
and how will you make "modules" hosted?

Michelle’s picture

When something is hosted that means you are keeping the code on your own server and only allowing the user to make use of it there, not download it. Therefore you are not distributing it.

If you were required to give out hosted code, then everyone who makes custom code for their own websites would be required to make it available for download. That's not how it works. Read the legal FAQ. It explains it.

Michelle