Joomla! Discussion Forums

Hi everyone

I'm sorry, if this not the place for this topic, but I was wondering....

Is there any possibility to get the Joomla distribution under other than GPL licence? Like, PHP licence or something like that - that would make possible to build upon it a product CMS...

I'm thinking about making a commercial CMS - and I use Joomla for my privet site, I love it - and i thought it would be really nice if you could make something based on Joomla with all the manuals and support etc - but commercial and able to sell it.

I'm not thinking of stealing Joomla - it's wonderfull work like it is, but I thought about something more... how to say it? .. more "business-friendly" :-)
Companies make their sites with Joomla but there are some functions that you need in corporate site but you don't have them in Joomla. I thought about building a biz-Joomla fork (distribution?) but not realising it under GPL - this is why i asked about another licence...

I'm sorry for a bad English - I wonder if someone has any experience or If anyone could say something in advice :-)

Thank you for your attention and sorry if I made some mistakes :-)

Good day to you all!!!

I think you are mixing two issues, but first I will try to answer your question directly.

In non-legal terms, the fact that Joomla exists and is something you love is with near certainty purely due to the fact that it is an open source project. Had it remained a proprietary project it would not have received the input and extensions from all those developers who made Joomla what it is today. To ask for a different licence and seek a closed source would, objectively, only be a useful question if you have the funds available to maintain a developer base as productive as that of Joomla - if you do not you would soon see Joomla develop beyond your proprietary product.
Aside from this, open source is something of an ideology and frankly I do not think you will make many friends in the open source community by asking for a closed soruce proprietary licence.

In terms of legal aspects (but this is no legal advice and you cannot rely on it), for Joomla to be released to you, or to the general public under a different licence than GPLv2 would require that all holders of a copyright in Joomla agree to do so. In practical terms that means everyone who ever contributed to Joomla and who did not assign his/her rights to the Open Source Matters foundation (OSM) will have to agree. The Joomla Core Team (JCT) has stated in the past that it is the view of OSM and JCT that it is not viable to change the licence. Presumably this means that not all contributors in the past have assigned their copyright, and that it is practically not viable to seek permission from all of them. In this light, I think there is zero chance that all copyright holders would agree to a closed source licence.

The reason why I said that you are mixing issues are that the GPL does not stop you from attaining your goals and in fact could help you attain them.

As to your view that Joomla could be more business friendly, under the GPL you are free to develop Joomla into something which you feel is more suitable for business purposes. Simplifying the GPL, the only condition is that if you distribute your modified Joomla you must release it under the GPL so that others can benefit from your work as you did from that of others.

As to commercial aspects, I am actually an opponent of the way the GPL deals with commercial interests, but I will try to give you a fair view. The GPL as such does not stop you from asking for payment for the download itself, or for services such as extended warranty, support, training, etc. The only commercial hurdle the GPL puts in your way is that any recipient of your modified Joomla released under the GPL would also have the right to distribute it for free or at a charge. In other words, you could have more stiff competition under the GPL than under a proprietary licence. For many, this has been too high a hurdle to make money on distribution as such, but there are a number of others (including world-renowned companies) who make a living on ancillary services.

All in all, if you are serious about making Joomla more like what you consider suitable for business, you can start developing today under the GPL. As long as you remain within the GPL, you may find help in the Joomla community to attain your goals. Once your work is done, you can release and distribute your work under the GPL and you can do so at a charge. In addition you can charge customers for training, support, warranty and any other ancillary service you fit into your business model. Once released under the GPL, your customers would be glad to know that they are free to modify your work and therefore you will not need to put your source code into escrow as is common with proprietary licences. Anyone who paid you for a copy of your version of Joomla (or otherwise obtained it) will be able to re-distribute your work or their modified version based on yours, at a charge or for free. But if your customers are happy with you and you stay ahead of developments, in practice that may never happen. Recipients of your Joomla version could include other Joomla developers, and they could release improvements on your work. What is greaat for you is that you will be free to use those modifications. In short, as long as you offer your customers more added value than others do, you should be able to develop a business model under the GPL for a busienss friendly version of Joomla.

As a final note, as long as you achieve your objectives by way of extensions, there is no need to fork. If you make modifications to the core, there is no need as such to fork either. Also keep in mind that for a fork you will need enough developers with you, and those will have to be either paid or convinced by you.