Wed 01 Jul 2009 |
JED to be 100% GPL at Midnight
Written by Toni Marie
We at the Joomla Extensions Directory are celebrating the next phase of our commitment to the GPL values that Joomla was founded on. As part of an overall movement toward embracing and encouraging use of the GPL in all aspects of the project, the JED announced in December 2008 that only GNU GPL extensions would be listed as of July 1. We have led up to this policy change slowly, and we hope with as much information as possible.
Tonight at midnight is the time and day that only GPL extensions will be listed in the JED. We're incredibly encouraged by the show of support and cooperation of our third party developers.
Our developers were given the time of midnight tonight as the target for relicensing their extensions with the GPL. While extensions have been coming to the GPL steadily since our announcement was made in December, a flood of changes are coming in just before that cutoff. We're thrilled at the overwhelming response to our call to bring extensions into GPL compliance. Developers have been working well with editors to clarify wording on their websites to assure users of the JED that the freedoms of the GPL will be upheld.
We can't begin to thank all of the amazing developers who have embraced the open source values along with us. Many previously proprietary and partially closed-source developers of commercial extensions have joined with us in the JED and released their Joomla extensions with the GPL license. We are confident in keeping the vast majority of popular commercial extensions in the JED due to the developers' willingness to work with our team.
We are committed to working with each of our developers to ensure that their projects are treated with respect and protected from exploitation. We're further committed to making sure the users of the JED have the most complete, compliant and vulnerability-free list of extensions for Joomla.
Thank you for making that possible.
Tonight at midnight is the time and day that only GPL extensions will be listed in the JED. We're incredibly encouraged by the show of support and cooperation of our third party developers.
Our developers were given the time of midnight tonight as the target for relicensing their extensions with the GPL. While extensions have been coming to the GPL steadily since our announcement was made in December, a flood of changes are coming in just before that cutoff. We're thrilled at the overwhelming response to our call to bring extensions into GPL compliance. Developers have been working well with editors to clarify wording on their websites to assure users of the JED that the freedoms of the GPL will be upheld.
We can't begin to thank all of the amazing developers who have embraced the open source values along with us. Many previously proprietary and partially closed-source developers of commercial extensions have joined with us in the JED and released their Joomla extensions with the GPL license. We are confident in keeping the vast majority of popular commercial extensions in the JED due to the developers' willingness to work with our team.
We are committed to working with each of our developers to ensure that their projects are treated with respect and protected from exploitation. We're further committed to making sure the users of the JED have the most complete, compliant and vulnerability-free list of extensions for Joomla.
Thank you for making that possible.
2009-07-01 20:49:01
And thanks to all the developers who worked so hard with the team over the past six months. Joomla! has a fantastic extension developer community.
2009-07-01 21:20:05
"The fork will only be considered for listing if the original extension has been listed for more than 3 months."
in the rules http://extensions.joomla.org/rules.
I think it will make a big difference to commercial developers, when they consider whether to invest the time to develop a new extension, and list it on the JED under the GPL.
2009-07-01 23:44:31
And I agree with Matt:
"Thank you for listening and putting: the fork will only be considered for listing if the original extension has been listed for more than 3 months."
2009-07-02 01:36:37
Anything is better than "GPL" vs. "commercial" though since it's just not a valid comparison.
Thank you
2009-07-02 04:09:20
"The fork will only be considered for listing if the original extension has been listed for more than 3 months, or the developer of the original extension has given permission to do so."
As many non-commercial developers will not have a preference if their extensions are forked, and the rule isn't clear on restrictions (which seem unnecessary) if this is the case.
2009-07-02 09:35:09
Users should be asked about none-GPL extensions in JED. It should be their choice, not the choice of Open Source Matters.
With this news Joomla just confirm that Open Source Matters drive the community and community doesn't drive Joomla!.
2009-07-02 13:53:02
2009-07-02 14:58:06
2009-07-02 20:07:44
This is no step forward, but a step backwards for Joomla and OpenSourceMatters!
2009-07-02 21:23:04
2009-07-03 01:20:07
I agree 100% - GPL is about freedom and therefore users must have the FREEDOM to choose whether they want to use a GPL-licensed software or not.
End Quote
This is a common misunderstanding people get caught up in. The General Public License is not about unlimited and unchecked freedom. Rather, it is about 4 very specific freedoms. We refer to these freedoms as freedoms 0 through 3. These very specific freedoms are advocated by members of our community because we believe these freedoms provide the greatest benefit to individuals and the community at large. All too often, a person will mistake our constant use of the word freedom with the notion of unlimited freedom. This is a serious error since unlimited freedom carries with it the freedom to deny other people's freedom. The GPL protects us from people who would use this power to restrict others via its "copyleft" attributes.
In closing, it is a mistake to believe that you have somehow identified a contradiction regarding the GPL and its advocacy of freedom. There is no contradiction and there is no irony. The GPL exists only to provide and protect 4 clearly identified freedoms.
For more information, visit the gnu.org website
2009-07-03 04:56:05
Users have that freedom. You can get any extension from anywhere on the Internet that you want.
And Joomla certainly has the right to not support extensions that violate its license and values with the traffic the JED brings.
Extensions that follow our very simple and important tenets are welcome in the JED: Respect users and other developers, respect the Joomla trademark, and respect the Joomla license. All our rules fall into one of those three categories.
2009-07-03 05:12:38
Some people might remember the dooms-day discussions after the announcement in June 2007. Like "the Joomla project will die", "no more Joomla extension will be developed", "Joomla will be forked in no time under a different license", etc, etc.
Instead of Joomla dying, Joomla is growing faster than ever with more free and commercial GPL extensions being developed and Joomla 1.6 bringing some revolutionary new features.
Big kudos on the way you have implemented this. Thanks, Marius
2009-07-03 06:15:11
Unpublishing half of Joomla extensions - it's a big step backwards and step forward to the extensions catalog in Wordpress or Druppal style - step to waste tray.
I didn't saw a poll about this issue. Just someone decided and did it. Who made that decision? I don't belive that it's users or developers comunity choice.
There are a lot of alternative ways to separate free and non-free extensions, for example large button at the top of JED - "Show / Hide non-free extensions".
2009-07-03 06:48:08
2009-07-04 08:57:52
A freedom restricted to 4 specific rules does sound like freedom!
Removing something like 1500 extensions is not more freedom or more functionality for the community.
Removing the choice to buy or not to buy GPL or non GPL is not Freedom.
Joomla extensions community is not limited to developers only, there is many which looks for functionalities and services and do not want to deal with open source code.
GPL is good, non GPL is good too, both bring 100% of free ideas.
Why not build a directory with both?
2009-07-04 21:06:50
Congratulations! I have already had two sites we loosely manage since this brilliant decision decide they no longer wish to use Joomla as they are having trouble finding extensions.
I agree completely Jean-Marc. There's quite a bit of "misnomers". Its called "control". That is to say, attempting to control developers/community all in the guise of "we believe in freedom".
I spoke with two companies yesterday who are dropping Joomla development of ports of 1.0 extensions to 1.5. Essentially, they are being disallowed to be "found" at the Joomla site if they try and protect their work. Yet, Joomla is nothing... not even a good CMS per se, without third party developers work.
So hurrah. J! Team will essentially kill all good commercial development all under a guise' of "Freedom" where-as they are doing the exact opposite. Its nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with control.
What we really need is a bunch of good extensions developers to simply make a new CMS that not only corrects the problems that Joomla refuses to address, heck, even Joomlas own code isnt "MVC" as they like tout not that it matters.
2009-07-04 21:09:14
2009-07-05 08:51:34
i am overwhelmed - really.
Thank you so much to the whole JED team for your great and incredible work to achieve this great milestone.
And thanks to all the developers who worked so hard with the team over the past years. Joomla! has a fantastic extension developer community.
i am glad that i am here. I am a great admirer of the global community.
love you all
matz
2009-07-06 09:37:29
Would it be possible to get a list with all related web site links for all extensions that were removed?
Joomla community has been building free reviews (good and bad) on these extensions too; it's not fair to lose all these inputs and functionalities because nobody can find them anymore!
If you give us this list, we would be able to maintain it of course outside of your JED and community will be free to go on your 100% GPL JED or free to go on our non GPL directory.
I think it is in Joomla interest also to allow 100% functionalities to expend even more over time even if your JED has to respect GPL…
Please contact me to explore this opportunity if you will. Thank you.
Jean-Marc Duchi
Ideal Dynamic Technologies S.L. (idtsa.com)
2009-07-28 10:00:30
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/chat/6872/details
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/multimedia/streaming-&-broadcasting/7449/details
We made these tweaks for both components:
- included a license/gnu.txt in component distribution
- included copyright notice in php files as comments
- setup license as gpl in installation xml
- specified on official integration component pages that the integration components are distributed under GPL:
http://www.videowhisper.com/?p=Joomla+Video+Conference
http://www.videowhisper.com/?p=Joomla+Live+Streaming
2009-10-05 11:50:00