Joomla! Discussion Forums

A spanish company is using joomla as an own product:
http://www.nerv.es

"His" content manager:
http://www.nerv.es/cms_ejemplo/

Moving to Legal forum.

Hi,

hard to know without full access to the code but they have not removed the Generator metatag and the demo shows the default copyright notice. Can't find a single reference to "our CMS".

It looks like a small business offering a CMS solution (Joomla!) to its customers.

That's what it looks like to me.  There aren't any references to Joomla in their search, so they don't mentioned it.  But I don't necessarily blame them.  They might mention it later in their sales cycle.  I've had people pitch me repackaged open source and I've implemented it on my own, so they lost business.  I take a different approach and pitch myself as being their implementor of the open source project.

Ummm, but what about this company?: http://www.anolecms.com/ It looks and links like Joomla, so....

John

So what?
From what I see, it looks like they sell a hosting package. Included in this package is Joomla (plus some modules obviously).
Why do they need to tell anybody that their CMS is Joomla (if it is)? Copyrights? Must be in the source, which it probably is. Though it maybe even isn't of importance, since they do not seem to re-distribute anything.
They use the name "AnoleCMS" which seems to be (tm)ed. Though I haven't found anywhere that they claim to have the copyright.
They say:

They take Joomla, some extensions, add some own stuff (and maybe some hosting functionalities), configure everything for easy use and then call the thingie "AnoleCMS". Probably not illegal. Bad style mabye, not to say "based on the GPL software 'Joomla'".

Thanks for sharing your opinion - I was curious and just wondering due to the URL similarities *and* the lack of attribution. No reference to Joomla shows up in the source code of the page ...but then, according to you, it may not even need to show copyright/attribution, right?

(Not so coincidentally, the quote you culled from their site reads: "One of... are available to all current and future Anole clients." Umm, wasn't last year's hot topic the GPL of Joomla and their interpretation of the GPL that such code be made available under that license to the public?)

I came across this post casually, yet I was/am interested because I too am building a web-development service around Joomla CMS, and mention rather than hide this important aspect of the business and site. I posted to bring this to the attention of the Joomla community, so I appreciate your info & perspective.

John

Maybe, but then it was a wrong interpretation ...

The GPL allows you to use the code more or less completely free. Only if you DISTRIBUTE the code (maybe even with own made changes) certain restrictions and requirement of the GPL apply. We do not know, WHAT exactly they are offering, but if they only offer pre-installed and -configured Joomla-like CMSs where the source resides on their server(s), I'd think it's safe to assume that this is not redistributing (in case of doubt: JUDGES tell you what is wrong or right), but instead only allowing a remote-using of a (GPLed) software. Though I admit that we are getting in troubled legal waters maybe, if their users have SSH/FTP access and could download the source - though they could disallow the downloading without violating the GPL, because - as already mentioned - does not require that you distrbute, it only ALLOWS to ...

Not having any mentioning of "Joomla" on this or any other site, MIGHT be considered bad style, but otoh there are also such things as design and CI.
BTW: Let's think that Joomla is something like Visu*l Stud*o from MS. Now, if you create an app with VB.NET would you expect that this application should mention "made with VS.NET, (c) MS" somewhere? Same with Joomla (or any other CMS): The "output" is (hopefully) in the sole copyright of the creator of the website. Ever saw a magazin that showed reference to the machinery that was needed to print it?

Again, thanks... and yeah, I get your point. Gosh, we don't have to use MS as an example, did we? ;-) Any app makes the same point. Furthermore, as far as Joomla's GPL interpretation is concerned, let's not even touch THAT topic!

Anyway, 'nuf said. I learned some insight in this thread and will take it into consideration going forward in my own biz practices.

John

Wow, interesting thread.

I was investigating another company that took the Joomla code, rebranded it and was selling website solutions based around Joomla as their own soforftware. In their contract is states that they retain ownership of the code and that it will not be made available. For what they were chargin for 'their' solution I thought I could be wrong about them using Joomla (or mambo, not completely sure which) code but now that I've had a chance to play with the live site I'm certain.

Bad form, indeed. I don't think I can mention their name though... libel and all that.

The kicker is that the solution I offered used Joomla as the CMS but I charged 11,000 less and gave credit to Joomla.

I hope you got the job