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on the other side you must admit that fooling the JED is fairly easy if you know what you're doing.

you can't ditch the possibility of blackballing, it's very real if a competitor has plenty of time in his hands.

the risk could be lowered allowing an easier and faster way to add comments and feedbacks.

if any app has 50-100 feedbacks (good or bad) a potential scammer would have to create dozens of fake accounts in order to push the app down in the chart.

now instead we see some apps ranking nr.1 with barely 5 or 10 votes, how much time would it take to "spice it up" ? a couple hours spread over a few weeks ? anyone can do it..

But you say "allow commercial non-GPL extensions." They say "no, we can't, that violates the GPL." You say "allow commercial non-GPL extensions." They say "no, we can't, that violates the GPL." You say "allow commercial non-GPL extensions."

Then they say "listen, if you don't get it, go away." You say "you're not listening, allow commercial non-GPL extensions." Then they lock the thread. This is their problem? Seriously. There's a communications issue here and it's not on the Joomla end.


So what people are saying is "go ahead and find those greener pastures because we're not changing to meet your requirements". This is pretty simple stuff but you seem incapable of accepting it.


Since OSM's legal counsel advised that extensions fall under the GPL, non-GPL extensions have been removed from the JED. [I have personally argued this with James Vasile from the Software Freedom Law Center, and he won the argument.] A lot of developers who didn't like that went off and started their own directory and... nobody came. They're gone now and most of their extensions have been replaced by GPL compliant versions.

There are some people who are good enough at development and marketing to sell ioncube-encoded extensions. They succeed without the JED and you're free to try to become one of them. Just don't expect help from the project.


I don't think you're reading that right. I think they plan to allow people to pay for GPL (and GPL only) commercial extensions directly on the site, which will remove a layer of infrastructure for a lot of developers. It's a great idea.


No, for me it creates the impression that you don't understand the GPL and you don't understand the project. Non-GPL extensions violate the terms of the GPL. Period. No more, no less. That's a fact, and it means the GED will never, ever, ever support non-GPL code because it is not legal.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

Interesting Post

From my experience and from chatting to many other development houses, there has always been little interest or care for OSM constant legalities and GPL licenses issues. Extension developers feel there code is not legally secure under Open GPL /GPL as legal prosecution costs would be too high to pursue anyways, and would rather be non-GPL and have closed code. Add this to boost that clients / purchasers have no interest either as they just want to pay for a quality working product - not something that has a high chance of having been bought and repackaged and resoled illegally...

GPL all seems very theoretical / complicated to most and I would say most developers comply just because they have to in order to get there extensions listed.

I also heard figures the other day of Joomla's legal costs regarding licensing and OSM (I just heard this from some more involved Joomla members, not validated) - seems like a waste of valuable resources to me as it secures Joomla but exposes us third party developers.

But this is a different discussion all together and ironically also one that has been around for years since GPL was forced upon developers here ;p

_________________
Lumo Mongoose
Theme Joomla! http://www.themejoomla.com

exactly, and going back on topic, being GPL allows joomla to tell complainers to "fix it yourself" and/or swicth to Drupal or Wordpress if they don't like it.

i mean, seriously, even in the microsoft forums they don't reach this level of arrogance and holier than thou attitude...

i've never been told to use Eclipse when complaining about a few obscure features of Visual Studio ! quite the opposite, a manager even replied me in private emails, without even asking if i'm a legitimate owner of a licence or if i'm using a pirate copy...

at the end of day, it's all a matter of professionality, which is clearly lacking in this forum.

I hope to not resurrect the very long discussion on the subject here. All I can say is that I went in to a conversation with James holding the position that extensions could be under any license they wanted to be, and he made a thoroughly convincing argument that my position was dead wrong.

So like everyone else, I was faced with "play ball and get listed in the JED or go it alone". This in-or-out choice isn't something dictated by the project, it's dictated by the GPL. Since the core code is GPL, and a large number of contributors to the project strongly believe it's the right license, that's what we get to deal with. Blaming it on Joomla, or asserting that there's some choice that Joomla made is just wrong.

Personally I decided to embrace the concept and although it's a major paradigm shift, it's worked out well.

As for legal costs, I'm not privy to any details, but I suspect the legal costs relate more to defense of the Joomla trademark than they do with GPL related issues. Unfortunately if you don't defend a trademark, it can be at risk, so some expenses are inevitable.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

you're misinformed.
actually it's the old developers who moved to other CMS.

some also left coding in order to focus in selling commercial templates and they're highly successful without the whole GPL mumbo jumbo...

yes, but we all know that all it would take to make non-GPL addons "legal" would be Joomla writing a statement where they fully endorse and allow non-GPL scripts to be listed in the JED and sold commercially in 3rd party web sites despite providing the CMS as GPL.

it's not a legal loophole, it's just a choice, but we're going off topic i guess...

Yeah, like Andy Miller and RocketTheme, who distribute their PHP code under the GPL. The images and CSS are under a proprietary license and that's fine because they're not considered to be derived works. Hell, most of the recent RT stuff uses layouts developed by YooTheme, because -- you guessed it -- they're GPL.

You can re-skin a RT template and sell it on your own as long as you don't use the images and CSS, but I'm not sure why you'd do this because Gantry gives you 90% of what you need and you can grab that from Google Code -- under the GPL.

As for those other folks who you say moved to other CMSes, that's perfectly valid. I think it's been suggested a bunch of times now.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

The ironic thing about the entire GPL/OSM/Legal debate is that it starts to sound more like a challenging corporate business concept rather then a free "movement / way of thinking" to protect and promote developers

Whats that? You have made a cool extension and want it listed? Sure, just read through these 10 pages of legal and then change each code page to comply. Oh and if it does not make sense to you, dont worry - it does not make total sense to most extension developers, just check all the forum posts regarding licensing...

To quote Eugene Belford / 'The Plague' (Closed Code Writer from Movie Hackers):
"We are Samurai... the Keyboard Cowboys... and all those other people who have no idea what's going on are the cattle... Moooo."

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Lumo Mongoose
Theme Joomla! http://www.themejoomla.com

Not really. AFIK OSM doesn't have copyright over the code, the contributors do. Any other license would require the consent of the people who wrote it, and I can assure you that a large number of them would not consent to that. A lot of code would have to be re-written, and by now you might be getting a sense of deja vu, because when Mambo tried that, most of the team picked up and started Joomla. I believe OSM's charter is explicitly designed to prevent that from happening again, but if someone found a loophole, you can bet that a lot of the top contributors to Joomla would fork again and continue on the path we're on now.

The people who created this project believe in the GPL and intend to comply with the terms it dictates, and that isn't going to change.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

See there's the thing. The GPL is designed to protect users, not developers. Sorry about that.


Seriously, it's only complicated if you're trying to find ways to circumnavigate it! Other than that's it's pretty simple: if a user can use the code, then they must be able to modify and distribute the code [edit], as long as they preserve the copyright and license [end edit].

GPL V3 is a little more complicated because a few clever folks did find a way to thwart this intent. V3 closes those loopholes quite well, and although it's a little longer it's a lot more clear on things like derived works.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

if you're the author, copyright is always yours in any case, at least in Europe, so i don't see any "plus" in your statement "you retain the (C)" as it's a given, maybe you're not aware about that ?

secondly, where is the value in owning the copyright of a script anyone is legally allowed to steal, fork, modify, and resell at their will without giving NOTHING back ?

ironically developers have nothing to gain from all this, anyone with money to invest will grab the code, rewrite it, claim as its own, and resell it, once again giving nothing back, not eben a credit line saying "code based on app xxx by Mr. yyy zzz".

and actually you don't even really need to fully rewrite, a good code obfuscation can save you 50% of the job.

exactly, and by the way we're already being screwed more than enough actually considering the rampant piracy of PHP scripts and clients unable to understand the amount of work needed to make a working product.

besides, it seems addons are treated here as just a "plus", well sorry but i can guarantee you joomla will never bundle an integrated shopping cart or a complex membership script dealing with different payment, statistics, etc

never, ever !

SO ... first of all i would like to see a bit more respect for developers, secondly the JED should be rethinked in a business-friendly way.

you talk about free and GPL .. think about selling something that allow people making money...why should get ZERO back ?

the many "thank you" emails i would get from happy users would not pay my bills, sorry.

we're not all fools like the author of Virtuemart....

i can give a real-world example : CB Subs by CommunityBuilder, it's not GPL, and it's sold in the same web site, the loophole here is they claim they use a separate installer etc etc .. which is BS as after being installed it runs joomla's API !

but due to some non-writter rules, the CB author seems to get away with it and nobody ever moved a finger about it.

as for GPL3 it's so bad even Linus Torvalds ranted against it.
actually i'm eagerly waiting for a draconian GPL4 so it will finally alienate the few remaining GPL coders... and I will have the last laugh ! :)

never say never ... actually the GPL licence allows them to change licence whenever they want in the future.

SMF is not GPL and they have millions of users too, nobody complains, thousands of addons, huge community, top-3 forum in the web, etc etc

Apache is not GPL, mySQL is not GPL, Firefox is not GPL .. and the list goes on.

the whole LAMP stack which is powering half of the internet is only 50% GPL... and unless they're using XEN the servers are running commercial cloud/cluster/virtualization solutions like VMware etc...

@dubois

If you are concerned about the requirement of the GPL, you can calm down. Other than stated by Alan, the JED definitly does NOT "believe in the GPL", they are only protecting their project. The important words are "derived works". This is the only point the JED cares about. If the "derived work" is GPL licensed. Nothing more, nothing less. And this leads to a situation where (nearly) 100% of the extensions listed are labelled "GPL" but only about a third of them really gives the rights to the user the GPL intends. About two thirds of the extensions heavily rely on CSS, JavaScript, Flash, and so on to be functional at all and these parts of the extension are often licensed with proprietary licenses that prevent the user from distributing the extension. So, if you want to protect your extension, the JED gives you enough room to do so. And in addition, the JED will erroneously - but intentionally - label your extension as GPL licensed although only the PHP-parts really are.

Best regards
Andreas

_________________
bretteleben.de

and that's another good reason for why devs aren't investing too much on joomla, the risk of having your app rewrited/forked/repackaged is simply too high.

so they stick with small scripts and are happy with their 20-30$ per download.

nobody will ever invest to make an extension sold for 500$ or 2000$ on joomla, and this simply because of the GPL.

no wonder you see in the JED 100s of small javascript slideshow scripts but just barely a dozen shopping carts (mostly commercial, of course).

exactly, these guys seriously need a wake-up call.

and the irony is they're genuinely convinced the joomla code is so good to start with.
so good that 3rd party extensions are barely a "plus" that doesn't even need a decent support by the JED team... they probably think most of the users are fine with the barebone joomla install, hahaha...

now they also spent a long time detaching the Jframework from the CMS and guess what, NOBODY in the PHP world is gonna use it apart joomla itself because it's no match even with PHPcake...

Dubois, it's infinitely clear that you simply don't understand the fact that a bunch of us choose to give our code away on the condition that anyone adding to it do the same. The fact that you don't get it or don't agree with it doesn't mean it's wrong.

As for copyright, I mean copyright notices in the code. In other words, if I take your GPL code and extend it to do more, I have to retain the "(c) 2011 dubois" in the source code. If I change it to "(c) 2011 instance" then I am breaking the license, as well as copyright law. If I add "portions (c) 2011 instance" then all is well.

Without speaking for them, I would be very surprised if Andrew, Louis, Sam, Ian and many others would ever consent to releasing their code under anything other than the GPL. Therefore, if you want a non-GPL Joomla, you would have to replace all their code. That's a lot of code, good luck with that.

As for how totally screwed up the project is, if you believed this you wouldn't be hanging around. You'd be refusing Joomla work and doing something else. There are lots of perfectly valid complaints bout how the project runs, and there are people who are doing their best to fix it, but you're neither of those.

You just make self-serving demands, refuse to accept that the GPL is what this project is based on, and then claim that the project is screwed because nobody is listening to you. In actual fact, the project is far from perfect but it is doing just fine and will continue to do so for some time to come whether you like it or not.

I understand that some developers have a hard time embracing the mental shift required to thrive in the GPL world, and I honestly understand if you aren't willing to make that transition.

All that's going to come from demanding that we fit your needs is that fewer and fewer people will listen to you. In turn you're liable to get even more forceful and hyperbolic. This will eventually result in some sort of outburst, and that violation of community standards will get you banned. This happens with sufficient frequency that there should be some sort of support group.

I hope you find a project that meets your needs, but seriously, it's not Joomla.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

You live in Toronto, i live in Asia, and let me tell you here nobody could care less about GPL, they're more than happy to steal, rewrite, repackagem, resell, and finally claim the final code as their own !

You guys obviously believe in fairy tales.
And good luck trying to sue somebody in china for copyright infringement.

--------

Rewriting joomla ? it's not as hard as you may think.
the real question is .. is it worth it ?

the code is worth nothing without marketing.
so ask yourself first, how much money and effort are you willing to put on the table.

--------

joomla screwed up : yes and yes ... but you see, i don't care if a cms sucks, they pay me to deal with it.
it's still not worse than phpnuke, dotnetnuke, etc etc, or other horrible custom corporate cms wrote in Perl or Java i had to deal with in the past.

--------

where does GPL fits in all this .. i don't know, it's you guys still beating around the bush even when licencing has nothing to do with the topic we're discussing.

you guys are really the classic example of a sectarian "cult".
nobody would complain if joomla switches to Apache, MIT, BSD, licences.

only zealots like you would rant and rave endlessy.

please focus on what users actually need and want.

--------

sorry but we developers need no "mental shift", we need no shift and no sh.. too, thanks.
users need solutions and are willing to pay, we provide solutions and we get the money selling them our products, PERIOD.
win-win situation !

but i've the sad feeling i'm talking with some enlightened new-age vegan fanatic...
i wonder how you're still in business.

Dubois: after reading 15 messages form you in this post only, and several other in other posts please consider that its difficult (at least for me) to keep track of your ideas
You are in a forum, so please use the forum away: someone presents its case and people argue/agree on any of he's points.
A forum its a communication medium to present our case and to find others opinions!
But you present so many ideas, so many issues and examples in that people reading you will tend to go away as you don't even give them time to say if they agree or not with you.

To make your ideas more clear please separate them in 2 areas: the JED issues and the Joomla Project issues. You can't mix them all!
JED isn't THE Joomla Project. Its simple one of its many areas, a directory. Same as you find for Resources (JRD) and in the future the Templates (JTD). And Joomla are not just directories (as you should know but you find most of the areas in the top menu!).

As for JED:
- JED editors don't take decisions on Joomla project directions (besides any other Joomla member as individuals)
- JED has editors to run the directory and apply those rules and they try to do it in the best way they can. Over the years lots of editors tried that too, so there are also historical procedures (see the former JED editors at http://docs.joomla.org/JED_history )
- JED simple applies and enforces a specific set of rules decided by the Joomla community and the corresponding boards. Sometimes rules are difficult to implement and sometimes we do it in the wrong way... but the directory has survived and grow each day. IF something its not ok it could be changed over the time.
- JED directory its coordinated by a CLT member so some of your questions should be directed to the CLT board.

Can I suggest to you that you separate your questions and create 2 different topics in forum:

1- Aimed to the JED: ways to run JED better, considerations os their editors and so one.

2- Aimed to Joomla project (in the main forum)
The things you consider that the Joomla Project should do or directions it needs to go.
maybe here : viewforum.php?f=48 or viewforum.php?f=575 depending on the subjects

Example: discussing Joomla license its not for the JED forum. Its a decision of the project so it should be left outside this forum are. But in JED you can question the way that JED its implementing that specific rule in the extensions listed or any other JED directory related issue.

Organize your thoughts and present your case in a clear and structured way (ordered lists?) so people could then interact with you (as in I agree with #1 not with points #2 or #3).

So take a break, do some writing and later present your manifesto or complaint list!

_________________
Online translation for Joomla core and extensions: https://sites.google.com/site/transjoomla
- JED Editor / pt-PT Translation Team / Portuguese Joomla Community

Now you've hit the nail on the head. Maybe if you wonder about that long enough you'll figure it out. I'll give you a hint: it's not just about the code.

Until you get it, you're going to be tilting at windmills here.

And with that, I'm done with this discussion.

_________________
==> Please do not PM me for support issues. <==
Alan Langford -- Joomla Security Strike Team, Extension Developer, Hosting Guy
Biz: http://www.abivia.net
Blog: http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease

i'm done too, and let me add i just read about Mozilla getting a new 300 million $/year deal from google, on top of this they started a new donation campaign and they still force the freetards writing plugins to give away their work for free, yes they are the reason for the success of Firefox in the first place and yet they get ZERO $ back from a company earning 1 million $ a DAY !

actually i see exactly the same arrogance and double standards in the joomla camp.

free software is a code name for screwing developers and enrich project founders, FACT !

@dubois
as you may remember we have different opinion on all matters,
so, i'll only reuqest you to stay on topic please
don't fly away

_________________
Nicola Galgano - Global Moderator
my knowledge is know to not know - www.alikonweb.it
www.joomladdons.eu - joomla free open source addons

I will gladly give anybody who asks for it on these forums all the moneys I made enriching myself with Joomla. FACT!
ROTFLOL

_________________
Jean-Marie Simonet / infograf · http://www.info-graf.fr
Multilanguage in 2.5: http://help.joomla.org/files/EN-GB_multilang_tutorial.pdf
---------------------------------
Joomla Translation Coordination Team • Joomla! Production Working Group

Ahem, that's not true. Check the link in my sig for one component that, at it's highest value, goes for > $1000. And you know what? People are happy to pay it, because I invest a huge amount of time supporting and improving it (trust me, I don't make a lot after business costs are taken into account).

Other contributors to this thread will know that I personally disagree with OSM and their standpoint regarding the GPL, but I have had to be pragmatic and gone with the flow, licensed the product as GPL, and it's worked for me and will work for other people too.

IMO OSM are wrong, but the JED's their ball, and if I want to play with it, I've got to follow their rules.

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http://www.jomres.net THE online hotel booking and reservation system for Joomla

glad to read i'm not alone in my anti-GPL crusade.

however, your choice is very risky, anyone can steal your code legally now, for instance it took me just 30 seconds to find a pirated Jomres 4.5.5 (hosted on Fileserve).

30 seconds? I can do better finding a pirated Windows 8!! And windows isn't GPL!

You also find pirated non-GPL Joomla extensions, even with encryption removed, or "hidden features added", commercial proprietary templates or whatever.

I wonder why people do pay for software... and specifically for GPL files?!
So:
- don't link GPL and piracy concerns.
- ask yourself how to do business in the GPL and JED way.

You are not requested to change your mind, you don't need to love it all. I myself don't like some specific rules but they are above me when and if I can't change them: this is a community project and I'm always free to go elsewhere!

_________________
Online translation for Joomla core and extensions: https://sites.google.com/site/transjoomla
- JED Editor / pt-PT Translation Team / Portuguese Joomla Community

yes you can get pirated scripts but you're still illegal, and if you use these scripts on a live site you could be easily catched by the author.

on the other side, with a GPL script, despite being sold for let's say 1000$ the author can do jack against you... even worse i could take the whole source code, post it on GIThub, and write clearly "please fork me" ... and still be 100% legal.

in fact, i'm afraid JomRes is the exception that proves the rule.

This topic has gone way off into other areas. Please stay on topic, or start a new thread.

_________________
~Matt Lipscomb
http://www.USAFreelancers.org
Professional Joomla! Services and Web Development based in the USA