Credits removal in joomla

[brian]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but it is a legal issue and this is part of the foundation remit.

Someone just pointed out that the credits link provided within joomla 1.0x now points to a screen at help.joomla.org which says

The Joomla! Credits section or About Us details pages have been moved.

Please visit the new page Working Groups  and see the details of the Core Team. 

And that the license link just points to a copy of the GNU/GPL License

The reality is something quite different especialy as there are numerous code items that are neither written by the Working Groups or Core Team (past or present) and that these code items may or may not be distributed under the GNU/GPL license

Specificaly

"Joomla! derives from copyrighted works licensed under the GNU General
Public License.  This version has been modified pursuant to the
GNU General Public License as of September 15, 2005, and as distributed,
it includes or is derivative of works licensed under the GNU General
Public License or other free or open source software licenses, including
works copyrighted by any or all of the following, from 2000 through 2005:
Nick Anies, Brad Baker, Ron Bakker, Shayne Bartlett, Tim Broeker, Levis
Bisson, Michelle Bisson, Robert Castley, Andrew Eddie, Rey Gigataras,
Johan Janssens, Alex Kempkens, Peter Koch, James Logan, Andy Miller,
Mitch Pirtle, Steen Rabol, Peter Russel, Phil Taylor, Brian Teeman, Emir
Sakic, Jean-Marie Simonet, Andy Stewart, Trijnie Wanders, Arno Zijlstra,
or Miro International Pty Ltd.

Joomla! includes or is derivative of works distributed under the following copyright notices:

Cache
---
Copyright: Fabien MARTY
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

DOMIT!
----
Copyright: 2004 John Heinstein. All rights reserved
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

ezpdf
----
Copyright: Wayne Munro, R&OS Ltd
License: Public Domain

feedcreator
----
Copyright: Kai Blankenhorn
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

js-calendar
---
Copyright: Mihai Bazon, 2002
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

js-jscook-menu
---
Copyright: 2002-2005 by Heng Yuan
License: Custom open source license

js-overlib
---
Copyright: Erik Bosrup 1998-2004
License: Artistic (see http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/?License)

js-tabs
---
Copyright: 1998 - 2003 Erik Arvidsson
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Mambo
----
Copyright: 2000 - 2004 Miro International Pty Ltd
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

patTemplate, patError
---
Copyright: Stephan Schmidt
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

PEAR
----
Copyright: 1997-2004 The PHP Group
License: PHP license

phpGACL
----
Copyright: 2002,2003 Mike Benoit
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

phpInputfilter
----
Copyright: Daniel Morris
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

phpMailer
----
Copyright: 2001 - 2003  Brent R. Matzelle
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

tar-archive
----
Copyright: 1997-2003 The PHP Group
License: PHP License

TinyMCE:
----
Copyright: 2004 Moxiecode Systems AB
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

vcard
----
Copyright: Kai Blankenhorn
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

wz-tooltip
----
Copyright: 2002-2004 Walter Zorn
License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

FOOOD Icons (Administrator Toolbar)
----
Copyright: 2004 iCandy Junior Icons
License: http://www.iconaholic.com/help/joomla.html
Notes: Please note these icons are NOT OPEN SOURCE but used with permission

Note in particular that the last item is NOT open source at all

It is quite wrong both moraly and legaly to remove the reference to these contributors from the credits.

I trust that this oversight will be corrected forthwith

[humvee]

As far as the credits page within the Help Screens is concerned it is simply pointing to the Working Groups that are involved in Joomla!. As for the licence connection that has as far as I am aware always "just" pointed to the GNU/GPL license header and is intended solely as a reference under which Joomla! is released.

[Edit]  Note I do take the point however that there ought to be somewhere that pays recognition to the contribution made "outside" of Joomla! itself. Certainly will make a note for future reference in Help Screens.

[humvee]

Un-needed expansion!

Andy

[brian]

Its not about "paying recognition" its about satisfying the license requirements. Especialy as the icons used are not under a free license

[manuman]

I'll email Michelle about the credits page.

On the License notice I'll try and figure out the best option to fix it. We really don't want a 1.0.13 just to fix that if we can help it.

Cheers
Shayne

[brian]

As the license is just a link just update the content at the link?

[Elpie]

Its also worth noting that Miro International Pty Ltd, a company that ceased to exist in December 2005, transferred all IP and copyrights in the Mambo code to the Mambo Foundation, Inc. That assignment of copyrights is from 2000.  As the Mambo Foundation holds the copyrights from 2000 onwards, it is more correct to acknowledge the Mambo copyright in the Joomla code as:

Mambo
----
Copyright:  2000 - 2005 Mambo Foundation, Inc.
License:  GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2.

Thanks.

[Del]

I ran into this issue trying to track down installation instructions for Joomla! on Debian. It seems that the icons and license from iconaholic is still present in Joomla! 1.5.x versions.

If I am not mistaken this means that Joomla! is not GPL, it contains proprietary parts not compatible with GPL. More seriously the iconaholic licensing prevents redistribution and changes, two of the main pillars of GPL. It caused coordinated attempts to package it for Debian to fail:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=326398
and frankly, I cannot see how Joomla! can be packaged or distributed with any GNU/Linux distribution or GPL software for that matter as long as the iconaholic licensing is there.

It seems like an awfully high price to pay for a couple of icons. Reducing Joomla! to a second range citizen of the GPL community. In effect, restricting installation to manual or schemes similar to the dreaded flash plugin.

Does anybody have any update on this issue?

[Tonie]

I'm not the person to help you with the current situation, I do know that the iconset has already been removed in trunk in january (for what will become Joomla 1.6). Only thing needed is to update the CREDITS file in trunk to reflect that they are gone.