normal ianal disclaimer.. but mediawiki is GPL2 you can make all the modifications you want to it and never distribute those modifications if you only run mediaWiki as a "network service".

You appear to be drawing parallels to C-library linking and code reuse to network services and hyperlinks. No such parallels are drawn in the GPL. The only license that comes close to adding such conditions is the http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html that basically says "network service is software distribution." in which case you have to distribute modifications to people that access your site/service that is based on agpl software.

(mediawiki *is not* under the agpl)

--michael

scandisk@gmx.de wrote:

Good afternoon, I have a question related to integrating a mediawiki into a proprietary software via an iframe.

I am planning on doing two things:

1. Write an open-source extension for mediawiki, that allows automatic sign on/account creations triggered by certain GET parameters. This could generally be used from any site by anyone.

2. Create a page inside of a proprietary portal, that includes an iframe to a separate mediawiki. The link to the mediawiki contains some GET parameters, that the mediawiki extension uses to identify/sign on the user or create a new account, if that user does not already exist.

The mediawiki runs on a separate server at a different location and is otherwise entirely unrelated to the proprietary software.

I have the following questions:

1. Does the GPL allow to integrate a mediawiki inside of a proprietary software via an iframe, without requiring the proprietary software to be published open source as well?

2. Does the provision of GET parameters in the src of the iframe (in order to realize an automatic account creation in the mediawiki) make a difference?

Has anyone ever been in a comparable situation?