[TYPO3-english] Extensions potentially violating the GPL

Kay Strobach typo3 at kay-strobach.de
Thu Dec 16 20:31:01 CET 2010


Hello Guys,

the GPL DOES NOT FORCE you to make your work public available - but
you're right it's suggested to do so. (But distribution includes code!)

The main Goal in TER is to serve completly GPL compatible Extensions in
TER. This is communicated clearly during registering Extension Keys.

Of course it's possible to use binary or nonGPL code with TYPO3 - but
this code can't be shipped directly via TER. Therefore we searched for a
practicable solution (postloading and displaying additional license
information).

We do absolutly do not want to force anybody to do all work for free.
Our intention was to ensure, that the TER rules are respected, as
publishing non GPL code in the TER can produce real live problems

A) for the developer for redistributing sth. - that he is not allowed
   to redistribute
B) for the integrator as components are thought to be GPL, which are
   not allowed in all environments.

So the intention is to ensure that current rules are accepted and we
searched a way to ensure that without modifying the core.

http://wiki.typo3.org/Overview_Extension_manuals#Non-GPL_compatible_extensions_.28to_be_removed_from_TER.29

Please take a look on the wiki article.

I do not think changing the TER rules solves this Problem.

Thanks for your Feedback.

merry christmas
Kay

Am 16.12.2010 13:41, schrieb Tonix (Antonio Nati):
> I agree 100%.
> 
> Tonino
> 
> Il 16/12/2010 11:43, Stephan Schuler ha scritto:
> Hey everybody.
> 
> 
> Let me just say what my position was on the german list.
> 
> 
> I am clearly willing to discuss it a little bit more, but because of
> less time at the moment i will just write down what i allready said.
> 
> 
> So, let me dream a little bit ...
> 
> 
> I do not want to remove all extensions from TER that do not agree with
> The GPL. No matter if it's an extension under another free licence or
> an extension with a completely closed commercial license.
> I would prefer to reorganize the TER to handle extensions with all kind
> of licenses.
> 
> I think about the following:
> * All code uploaded to TER has to be GPL or at least of another free
>    License.
> * Extensions should be able to declare external packages for download,
>    such as the YAML extension allready does.
> * Extensions should be able to declare, if they are licensed
>    * completely free
>    * free for non commercial use
>    * completely non free
> * When downloading an extensions through the extension manager or via
>    the TER page on typo3.org, i want to filter for these categories
> * An extension using the external package download feature should not
>    be treated as a non free one by default. On the german list, the
>    person implementing the piwik integration extension said, that he
>    is using external package download because the piwik source is very
>    large at one hand and has very short update cycles at the other.
> * Maybe if an extension is completely non-free, the only thing being
>    part of its TER representation should be the package download
>    instruction.
> * The license categories should be very clearly displayed on the TER
>    webpage and inside the extension manager. I am very sure most of the
>    users downloading one of the jw player extensions don't even read
>    the manual (because the extensions often work out of the box without
>    any configuration) and so don't realy know that they are doing wrong
>    when they use it on commercial projects without payment.
> * If someone wants to give away his extension but doesn't want to
>    upload his code to TER (even if gpl licensed), he could use the
>    package download feature as well.
> 
> One thing is: I don't want to support people that don't read the manual.
> Everybody downloading an extension from TER should be self responsible
> to read any kind of delivered documentation. But on the other hand, it
> doesn't hurt us to color the TER web page blocks in an obviouse way.
> 
> The package download feature should take care of those kind of packges
> that are not allowed to be downloaded directly from the remote server.
> I am thinking about files being described as "please do not link this
> file directly". To handle that, the backend administrator should be
> able to upload the download package files through an file upload field
> directly. Therefore, we should specify a "package file download target"
> field as well as a "download the package file yourself" field.
> 
> The reason why i want to add those features to the TER: Sometimes i
> don't realy know an extension to solve a certain problem but i know
> how to describe the problem. Then i want to got ot he TER and look for
> a fitting extension bevor starting to implement one for my own. If we
> kick some extensions out of TER because of not agreeing the license
> situation (no matter what kind of license situation that might be some
> days in the future) i am not able to find them. But i don't want to
> search 10 or more inofficial TERs just because that's the only way for
> commercial extension providers to publish their work. Enforcing license
> limitations in TER will in my opinion split the market. What this means
> can be seen at Googles Android Market. Some app developers don't publish
> their apps through the official market but on others. If i want to
> download an android app, i better google for it instead of using the
> official market download search form becaus that would not provide the
> results i want to have. This situation is kind of painful and i would
> realy like to preserve the TYPO3 TER from that.
> 
> If there are extensions that are completely closed (rethorical situation,
> i realy thing there *are*) even if that's against our license policy and
> against our all inmoust  persuasion, we should not ban them completely
> from TER but only blame them a bit instead.
> 
> 
> The situation i want to construct is:
> "If you don't agree with our rules, you should not upload your code to
> TER. But if you want, we could just name you and your download page
> Within the TER search results".
> 
> 
> I'm very convinced that this is not a thing of days but of weeks or
> months. Especially because such a breaking change has to be discussed
> a lot and implemented for all supported versions of TYPO3.
> 
> 
> So my position is very clear: I would rather change the TER structure
> in a very hard way than delete all kind of usefull extensions from TER
> because of incompatibility with the TER rules.
> 
> 
> So if we realy to anything, we should do it the user friendly way, not
> the hardliner way.
> 
> I totally agree with Dimitry: Why not change the TER rules?
> Even if i think that Dimitry doesn't want to go that wide.
> 
> 
> [p.s.]
> Hmm, took more time an wanted to spend ...
> [/p.s.]
> 
> 
> Greatings,
> 
> 
> 
> Stephan Schuler
> Web-Entwickler
> 
> Telefon: +49 (911) 539909 - 0
> E-Mail: Stephan.Schuler at netlogix.de
> Internet: http://media.netlogix.de
> 
_______________________________________________
TYPO3-english mailing list
TYPO3-english at lists.typo3.org
http://lists.typo3.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/typo3-english
>>



More information about the TYPO3-english mailing list