Freedom without responsibilities brings about anarchy. Or at least that's what they tell us. A wild fire discussion at the Joomla Forum about "Can Joomla! extensions be released under non-GPL compatible licenses?" which is about discussing freedom is fast snowballing into a general discussion of the future of the GPL license or OSS movement itself! (as regards commercial developers).
With the heavy hitters of the Joomla! Project and senior 3PDs peppering the topic with their perspective and inclinations, this has become a good insight into what happens when commercial developers use a GPL OS solution. In fact, on page 14 a certain 'linus' joined the conversation. If this is who I think it is then this thread just got elevated to global consciousness. Hope Rochen is prepared for /.
We at Jooms.com have been specifically conscious of a 'letter and spirit' adherence to the GPL as far as our own services are concerned. Though we do buy and use commercial components, encrypted or otherwise, in a variety of licenses including developer licenses, service ware, subscription ware, per site or per user, to ensure timely and cost effective Joomla! solutions for our clients.
Though from where I stand, the conversation is actually veering towards a rather ominous slant - GPL but paid subscription for commercial use of Joomla! itself! So GPL but no longer free use! Hang on, isn't that the reason we moved from Mambo to start with? Where is the Lone Mamber? He needs to comment on this.
So, will Joomla! continue to be free to use or will you be required to pay a subscription fee for every commercial site you develop with it? Will commercial 3rd Party developers of Joomla! keep developing products or will they look for new frameworks? Will it even be legal to release any module/component which uses any proprietary code from any non GPL compliant code base.
Hold your breath, sit on tenterhooks and hope that they make the correct decision. Or get proactive, get involved, head on down to http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,163492.0.html and let your opinion count.
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