1 - From http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,185924.0.html
This is complete and total bull! The only thing that has been said is that if you do not comply with the strict interpretation of the GPL license you CAN be sued NOT by Joomla but by someone who owns a GPL license that Joomla uses! This crap is so pervasive yet completely wrong and is nothing more than scare tactics used by some 3PDs to try and pressure a different decision. And IMO it is these 3PDs who start this crap that need to go! Let them go to Mambo where MONEY is more important than good work!The Joomla team is trying to get rid of the evil non-GPL extensions, and yet they're still using them to promote Joomla in the J.E.D?
2 - from http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,185065.0.html
No one EVER has said you can't charge for software...This myth is probably the worst of the lot!Why are donations OK but charging directly isn't?
You can charge! The issue is that you must license it with a GPL compatible license. Thatdoesn't mean you can't still charge for that program and use that money towards future development!
3 - from http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,185065.0.html
Hmm so you can't rely on GPL extentions but you CAN rely on the GPL base all these commercial extentions rely on to work?Mostly that means that we can't rely on 3PD's who are not, themselves, commercial since they can't usually afford to dedicate time to keeping the software current and removing bugs.
The fact that you use Joomla at all shows the mistruth of your statement. If you can't rely on a product you didn't pay for well then you need to change your CMS not change the way the GPL is interpreted!
That is akin to saying you can't rely on free gas to be used in the car you got for free...This notion is just rediculous. And I can show you a list of commercial options that are less reliable than a free extention that does the same thing. The myth is actually backwards as FREE software is usually better written than the commercial version because in the free version anyone can find and fix mistakes while in the commercial version only the guy getting paid can find the mistakes to correct them! Joomla is as error free as it is for a reason. There are literally 1000s of people looking at the code and finding problems. If everyone looks at the code for a hour trying to find problems then you have 1000 hours of Q&T on the free product and about 1 hour on the commercial!
Just cause they charge doesn't mean they are any better at coding than someone who doesn't!
None of the Developers of J! get paid a single penny and yet the J! product is far more stable and error free than 99% of the extentions that are availble to work under it!
As was stated in the other myths again there is this notion that you can not charge for a GPL program you created...
Please stop listening to these 3PDs who say that because it is nothing but utter lies. They can continue to charge for their work and the only problem they have is that they can't keep the keys to the code all to themselves. They now have to allow others to be able to modify and see their mistakes and be able to correct them which will reduce their ability to charge you again for those mistake corrections and in some cases will expose the fact that some of these commercial extentions that people think are so much more reliable are actually just as buggy and in somce cases WORSE than what you find in the Free Beer GPL offerrings.
so some people should come back to reality, check their facts before they go off spouting what they heard from some 3PD and verify their information before they go posting doomsday scenarios trying to scare people into forcing J! into allowing a free for all that allows anyone to code whatever they want and release whatever they want under any license they want....
They can if they choose simply IGNORE the statements made by OSM and the J! devs and will most likely STILL not get sued by OSM or J!.
None from the two groups (really one) has threatened any legal action towards anyone who ignores the statement.
You of course would still be at risk of lawsuit if you distribute non GPLed code for use in J! since anyone who owns a GPL license on code that J! uses has the right to sue you for breaching THEIR license!
And that would be true even if J! said it was fine to release under any license you wanted! J! teams and OSM can only make statements regarding what THEY will do not what any license holder of code they have used to make J! will do!
So you can choose to ignore the whole issue and choose to continue to release using a GPL incompatible license if you REALLY believe you have the right to do that!
But you had better be prepared to backup your view in a court of Law because someone not related to J! can take you to court for using their GPL code to make your extention work. And since you don't know what GPL code J! uses you will be hard pressed to figure out where to go to get permission.
No one is forcing you to not develop for J! and charge for that work nor are they forcing you to release using a GPL compatible license...
All that has been said is that you (the distributor of any code that is licened under an incopatible with GPL license) are at risk of lawsuit (NOT FROM J! OR OSM) if you choose not to because J! can't control what some other 3PD license holder will do in regards to code they have written and released under the GPL system!
Edit Thanks to ChuckT for pointing out my lack of Clarity on that last pont.
And since he mentioned this I will add one more Myth to my rant...
4 - USERS will be forced to stop using all the software they have previously bought as a commercial product under a commercial license incompatible with the GPL...This is totally bogus!
Users are not affected by any of this except in the case of support. And the only reason why support would suffer is because the Dev you bought it from abandoned you. He could still support you provided his updates were GPL compatible which he could still charge for if they wanted to. If a component you use that you paid for works nothing about this issue changes your rights as a user to use that code! It does not become GPL automatically so you still can not distribute it. But you can still use it under the terms of the license you bought the code under and continue to use it as long as you feel the program is useful! No legal action will ever be taken against a user of the code provided they have a right to use that code. You gained that right when you purchased it and no one not even the developer who made it and sold it to you can stop you from using it. This issue is strictly about those who DISTRIBUTE programs not those that use them. the GPL license restrictions do not impact any user at any time! Only those who distribute software. And since most of you who have bought commercial non GPL software were restricted from distribution anyway absoloutly nothing about the program you bought has changed in regards to use!
