GPL 3 in the community?

i just noticed that the elgg community does not support GPL 3 licenses for plugins. when i was reading about licensing on github i thought that GPL3 was the best one for me at present. is there a reason why GPL 3 isn't an option here yet?

  • We accept BSD licensed plugins, which clearly aren't GPLv2 compatible. What if we announce on non GPLv2 plugins that they're for the MIT release?

  • Hmm good catch with the BSD license. I'm not sure how that got there. 

    I'm comfortable saying if the plugins aren't GPL compatible, then you "must install them under the MIT-licensed version of Elgg." License issues are always so complicated and turn into word gymnastics.

  • thanks for the input here. the plugin i have coded is an addon for tidypics, so i am not intending to re-release tidypics with a different license - although it does include some views from tidypics which have been altered and used to over-ride the default tidypics ones.

    the idea of releasing the code minus the GPL3 modules is one i would rather avoid as it just adds a lot of extra work for me with no benefit to anyone - mostly just for the sake of word gymnastics in relation to the lie-sensing! ;)

    if i understand the consensus here correctly with regards the MIT license, it sounds like you are saying you would allow me to upload a GPL3 plugin here provided it states that it is for use with the MIT licensed version of elgg, is that right?

  • GPLv2 alternative of the GPLv3 module possible?

    Maybe https://github.com/razorjack/quicksand instead of https://github.com/metafizzy/isotope? It would be possible to release both as GPLv2 and MIT. Though I can't say anything about the functional differences of either of these libs.

  • the other plugin i have used (for justifying images) is released under the MIT license - although i haven't yet looked into how that may effect the situation.

    i just re-read all of this again and realise now in more detail what the issues are (i'm on holiday at the moment and not really able to give it my full attention).

    the quicksand plugin could be a way around the issues, but i would really rather not add extra work into this as i already put a lot of time into it and never really planned to create the plugin at all.. so my schedule is way behind now.

    who exactly is the original author of tidypics that would technically need to give consent to release the code as GPL2 (or later) or GPL3? is it cash?

  • just out of interest, what would be the issue with moving elgg itself to GPL3 (or GPL2 and later)?

  • who exactly is the original author of tidypics that would technically need to give consent to release the code as GPL2 (or later) or GPL3? is it cash?

    You would need the consent not only of a single original developer but of ALL developers EVER contributing to Tidypics!

    The same when trying to change the license of Elgg. All developers would have to agree. Or you would have to re-code every line of code contributed by a developer not agreeing with the license change...

    The details of mixing up licenses / usage of APIs with different liceses (referred to by Matt) etc. are beyond my knowledge. Most likely, the are much more legal restrictions in theory than in practice. People just do stuff not knowing exactly about everything or just not care. As I understand, the question is if usage of an API is defined as "derivate work" already or if it's "just usage". I believe the Linux kernel as an example says API usage is not derivate work and this means you can run software with other licenses on Linux (kernel is GPLv2 btw.). With regards of making use of GPLv3 lib in an Elgg plugin I think you are allowed to do that as long as you don't copy code from the lib files into your GPLv2 plugin code (but just include the lib).

    I have one plugin only on github only because it was released on GPLv3 originally. To be on the safe side you could release your plugin on github at least. Most likely, less people will make use of it then. But at least it is available for others - and some other devs are no longer releasing their plugins here on the community site either even without any license issues as a blocker...

    Happy Holiday! :-)

  • oh ok, so if i use a version of isotope that is hosted on jsdelivr, for example, then there is no issue with uploading the plugin to the elgg community? since i am already doing that on my own site it will be easy to make that switch. there are others issues with using CDN hosted libraries though:

    • the 'jquery-bridget' plugin is bundled with isotope and is needed to use isotope as a jquery plugin - however, requireJS does not use it correctly in elgg, so i had to use a separate, local version of it in the tidypics_plus plugin and bridget is not available standalone in the CDN i use (JSDelivr).
    • the version of the justified gallery code that's on JSDelivr is quite old.

    however, both of these are MIT licensed and i am not clear whether there is an issue with uploading MIT licensed code here or not (for use with GPL2 code).

  • oh ok, thanks. i just found that all the packages are available in their highest versions in the free bower CDN - which until now i knew nothing about :)