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Our Blogs Open Sauce Joomla! - the licence stays the same
Our Blogs Open Sauce Joomla! - the licence stays the same | Joomla! - the licence stays the same |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Wednesday, 04 July 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
When proprietary extensions are used with an application or program that is licensed under the GPL, one must define as clearly as possible the way the extensions link to the parent application. It happens with the Linux kernel: there is licensing controversy over Linux' use of firmware "binary blobs" to support some hardware devices. The Free Software Freedom chief Richard Stallman claims these blobs make Linux partially non-free software, and that distributing Linux may even be violating the GPL (which requires "complete corresponding source code" to be available). According to Wikipedia, Linux creator Linus Torvalds has "stated his belief that loadable kernel modeuls using only a limited, 'public' subset of the kernel interfaces can sometimes be non-derived works, thus allowing some binary-only drivers and other LKMs (loadable kernel modules) that are not licensed under the GPL. Not all Linux contributors agree with this interpretation, however, and even Torvalds agrees that many LKMs are clearly derived works, and indeed he writes that 'kernel modules ARE derivative 'by default''. On the other hand Torvalds has also said that "one gray area in particular is something like a driver that was originally written for another operating system (ie. clearly not a derived work of Linux in origin). [...] THAT is a gray area, and _that_ is the area where I personally believe that some modules may be considered to not be derived works simply because they weren't designed for Linux and don't depend on any special Linux behaviour." But even if something is a derivative work, questions arise only when one wants to distribute the combination. A FAQ about the GPL says: "The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization. But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you." Hence, this means that Joomla! users can continue to use their proprietary extensions without any problem as they did earlier. The people who write proprietary extensions need have no fear either; they will only fall foul of the GPL if they distribute the Joomla! code along with their extensions, without providing source code for the extensions. |
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