Elgg Licensing

TL;DR: How to accomodate Thematic Networks' SAAS setup with community-oriented free software development?

The context

Elgg core is released under a dual-license that provides compatibility with AGPLv3+ and GPLv3+ free-software-friendly development. But Elgg core plugins, such as groups, are released under an exclusive GPLv2 license that is incompatible with the above-mentioned licenses.

The problem

That situation leads to a conflict of interest between one of the copyright holders, Thematic Networks, that offers the "Software As A Service" proprietary platform Elgg.com, and the free software community willing to distribute freedom-friendly code under the (A)GPLv3+ licenses.

Solutions

This discussion is to gather community feedback regarding potential solutions that accommodate all parties. Among the possibilities already mentioned in various issues on Github:

  1. change Elgg's license to GPLv2-or-later in the 2.0 release
  2. include core plugins into the MIT(X11) release
  3. rewrite core plugins and release them under (A)GPLv3

 

Feedback and Planning

Feedback and Planning

Discussions about the past, present, and future of Elgg and this community site.