[TYPO3-english] Extensions potentially violating the GPL

[JoH asenau]

> A company which works on its own developments must protect its work.
> If TYPO3 does not permit that, TYPO3 is not for professionals.

You still miss the point completely.

And there is bad news for you: Since the TYPO3 license forces you to sell your extensions with a compatible license, all your clients already can publish the stuff you did for them without having to ask you for permission. 

BUT: GPL doesn't force anybody to publish anything, if people don't want to give something back for free, although they got the TYPO3 core for free, which is worth hundreds of thousands of working hours. 

So you and your clients can keep your stuff private as long as you like and charge other people as much as you like for it. And if the amount you charged was high enough, most likely the clients will not publish the stuff you sold them as well, although the GPL would allow them to do so.

BUT: Since the current TYPO3 core is bound to the GPL license, you can not simply switch to another one, because this is exactly what the GPL license does NOT allow. Everybody who contributed stuff for the core did so while accepting the terms of the GPL, so publishing the core with another license would be possible ONLY with the permission of each and everybody who contributed, which is not very realstic. But even IF everybody agreed, the GPL would make sure, that the current GPLed version of the core would STILL be available together with the version using the other license.

But you should not be afraid too much, since according to some official T3A sources the amount of money made by TYPO3 developers and agencies all over the world is a few hundred million dollars per year. So I guess there will be something left for you as well ;-)

Have a nice weekend

Joey

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