Re Will the Core Team divulge this to their customers?

[northend]

« on: June 24, 2007, 10:54:57 PM »

I have been watching the debate for the past week as it hits pretty close to home.  I do not develop apps, but I am a business owner who currently is having some components developed for the new 1.5 version.  If I am required by the GPL to release the code I am paying to have developed, then I will halt development.  It looks as though that is what the Core Team is essentially saying.

My question to them and to everyone in the community is this:

Has the Core Team explained to their current customers that their customer will be forced to release all of the source code that the customer paid to develop.  This includes informing their customers that yes, even the competition will have access to this.

I would like to see a poll from the Core Team, a show of hands, of who informed their customers UP FRONT about the GPL issue before development started, since they knew about this issue all along.

This really should only pertain to the Core Team members who provide paid development services for Joomla.  I think that would include nearly all of them.

Could somebody please clarify the above for me. I am rather surprised that Core Team members are allowed to accept commercial contracts for Joomla development services; I had assumed from posts on this forum that they provided their services for free!

Apologies if this is already covered elsewhere, if it is could you please point me in the right direction.

[Jenny]

All of the volunteers that give of their time and expertise give it to the Project for free.  No core developer charges Joomla! anything to develop and code Joomla!

[mcsmom]

The original post didn't make a lot of sense, but I assume that the poster was referring to work that people do professionally not work they do on the Joomla! project.

[aoirthoir]

Northend,

Would you provide the link that the quote came from so that I can respond directly on that thread as well?

Thanks kindly in advance.

In regards to the question, a business does not have to release its program at all. The GNU GPL allows anyone to keep their work private. If they wish to distribute however, it must be GPL compliant.

For instance, I and a developer we have hired are creating 2 programs. One is a program my employer needs, and the other is a program I have conceptualized for the last several years. The one I have conceptualized is being used to assist in making the other one. (You could consider it a code generator, but that's not really accurate.). So the 'code generator' will be distributed under the GNU AGPLv3. So anyone using it will have to follow those guidelines. However, the code produced by it (the other program) will not be released. Even if we had other GPL code in it, we would not be required to release it.

Hope that helps clarify.

[Jenny]

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,184242.0.html

That is the thread aoirthoir.

[aoirthoir]

MM,

Thanks kindly!

[Toni Marie]

Just to clarify really quick: The work people do for Joomla, and the work people get paid to do ... two different things.  Nobody would expect Joomla core team members to not have paying jobs.  And if their paying jobs are developing custom Joomla components, I don't understand the problem.  They're not priests, they're volunteer developers.