Suggestion for a compromise plug-in

[danr7]

I really love Joomla and it distresses me that this GPL issue has so split the community. I've been thinking about the problem and it seems like there is a possible solution offered by an existing piece of technology in the Joomla system.

Currently, Joomla 1.5 offers compatibility with 1.0.x versions through the System - Legacy plug-in. This plug-in apparently abstracts part of the new Joomla system and creates a sort of middle-ware into the system.

What if the same thing could be done for a future external interface? Perhaps the Joomla team could create a plug-in called System - Proprietary which provided an API to Joomla. The proprietary extensions could access this API -- and not subclass the Joomla Framework classes -- and therefore wouldn't be derivative works.

Since the team is making a gradual move toward GPL compliance for extensions, the initial version of the plug-in could begin life as a simple registration system and not necessarily offer any functionality. As the team fleshed out the API, proprietary extensions would come more and more into compliance.

I'm not a lawyer, but such an implementation would seem to leave the GPL as interpreted by joomla.org intact and also provide existing and future third-party developers a path to move forward.

[mcsmom]

Thanks for thinking creatively about how to address the issue. I hope you and others will continue to develop the various  ideas being presented, perhaps with a proof of concept exercise.  IANAL and I IANA developer, so I won't comment on this particular idea.

[danr7]

I don't think anyone but the Joomla team could make your suggested proof of concept exercise. As you know, the debate of the limitations of the GPL is raging furiously with no clearly defined borders.

I read the FAQ relating to plug-ins on the FSF site (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/g ... AndPlugins).  It has a vague description that "dynamic links" between a program and a plug-in makes the plug-in GPL, but a plug-in using fork or exec is a separate program. Therefore, only a plug-in created by joomla.org that complies with their understanding of this gray area would be useful. 

However, my original intention was to suggest that how this API would work need not be decided today. Since the team isn't seeking immediate GPL compliance, it would only need to be stubbed into version 1.5. It would create a new route through which the team could unambiguously affirm their intention to find a way to support proprietary extensions in the future while protecting the core license.

Unless they are ideologically opposed to proprietary software (in which case there is no possible technical compromise solution), this plug-in could address the concerns of existing vendors.

[mcsmom]

The thing is, Joomla! is an open source project. You too can contribute code.

[danr7]

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I know Joomla is open-source and I intend to contribute code (I'm working on a PDO database abstraction layer which I will post open-source). My point was that only the Joomla team can make a decision on what complies with their definition of GPL.

Tomorrow I (or anyone else) could create an abstraction plug-in that seemed to allow commercial plug-ins to link into Joomla without being considered derivative works and get every commercial developer on board. The day after that, joomla.org could state that the extensions that use the plug-in are indeed GPL and must carry that license. I think that is essentially the situation we are in now.

Creating the technical solution itself is not the problem (nor does it require a working prototype at this point). It is only a commitment to signal that there will be a way to create robust proprietary extensions in the future.

[mcsmom]

From my understanding "the devil is in the details." That's why something that may work in its first description may not actually work when the code is actually written.

But I agree it would be helpful to know people's opinions on whether the general concept is valid.

[danr7]

I thought of one final suggestion for this thread. I know that implementing this suggestion would be very inelegant and downright clunky, but it might provide a way out of the legal maze. Instead of a Joomla API that extensions could talk to, how about using another API altogether?

Imagine there is a CMS application out there (or maybe some generic web application) that has a published API that is not GPL -- we'll call it Alien API. Alien API doesn't even need to be in PHP as long as it supplies the right types of functions (web output, database connection layer, and so on). A Joomla plug-in could be written to handle interactions with Alien API and Joomla extensions could be retrofitted to talk to it as well.

Extensions written to access the Alien API could never be construed as being derivative works of Joomla. Of course the problem would be finding an Alien API that had the necessary capabilities and also had a license permissible enough to make something like this possible.

I did a quick search on Google and didn't find anything useful under CMS API, but perhaps some Joomla developer knows of an API that would fit the bill or could be adapted to do so.

[ChuckTrukk]

Dan,

It looks like lobo has been working on something like this. You might want to see how he is coming along with this.

Chuck

[mcsmom]

Great thinking. And by all means talk to Lobos, he seems to have a lot of good ideas.

And Chuck Trukk we all also have learned from your research on these issues in other applications.

Everyone does well when sharing ideas and trying to work together for solutions.

Signed

"ill informed" "socialist/communist" Russian mafioso who doesn't know anything. 

MOD NOTE: Removed uncivil comment. - UNIXBOYMD

[mcsmom]

A note.

I really do believe that things work best when people work together creatively to try to solve problems.

In the context of many long threads there have been people who have attempted to do that, and I want to encourage them. Lobos has, in his way, been one of them, although often here and elsewhere in ways that are not positive and conversational, but demanding and rude. A number of the rude posts here and elsewhere on the web have been directed at me personally, including calling me some of the names quoted in my post.* However, I still want to encourage talk, talk, talk even with people who are not easy to talk to. In doing that I made a joking comment about Lobos that certainly should have had a at the end, but probably would have been better off being thought privately rather than said "outloud."  Now that my post is edited to eliminate it, people may see the whole thing as sarcastic, but it is indeed very sincere. I hope that creative people, especially talented coders, will work in good bazaar style open source culture to work to find solutiions to the challenges that they feel they face in making sure their work does not violate licensing requirements.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the "uncivil" phrase.


*It wasn't only Loboswhich  why I let the talk get a little too "inside baseball," assuming everyone else had read the relevant threads.

slightly modified.