Hello All,
I am planning to develop a new Open Source project keeping mediawiki as the baseline. I wonder how the liciening policy of mediawiki will affect my intention. Could somebody help me on whether it is possible to develop my own app using mediawiki and distribute it as an opensource project?
Thanks, Regards, Sajith Vimukthi Weerakoon, T .P No : ++94-716102392 ++94-727102392
MediaWiki is open source. The license is the GPL version 2. If you use the GPL or a compatible license for your project, then everything should be okay.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
On 12/28/11 10:31 PM, Sajith Vimukthi wrote:
Hello All,
I am planning to develop a new Open Source project keeping mediawiki as the baseline. I wonder how the liciening policy of mediawiki will affect my intention. Could somebody help me on whether it is possible to develop my own app using mediawiki and distribute it as an opensource project?
Thanks, Regards, Sajith Vimukthi Weerakoon, T .P No : ++94-716102392 ++94-727102392 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
I know a lot of closed source projects that use MediaWiki and just leave a note that part xxxx is under license xxx by authors xxx.
Best,
Huib
2011/12/29 Neil Kandalgaonkar neilk@wikimedia.org
MediaWiki is open source. The license is the GPL version 2. If you use the GPL or a compatible license for your project, then everything should be okay.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
On 12/28/11 10:31 PM, Sajith Vimukthi wrote:
Hello All,
I am planning to develop a new Open Source project keeping mediawiki as
the
baseline. I wonder how the liciening policy of mediawiki will affect my intention. Could somebody help me on whether it is possible to develop my own app using mediawiki and distribute it as an opensource project?
Thanks, Regards, Sajith Vimukthi Weerakoon, T .P No : ++94-716102392 ++94-727102392 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Neil Kandalgaonkar ) neilk@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
Ok, that start sueing people, so we don't need a fundraiser next year ;-)
Best,
Huib
2011/12/29 Dan Collins en.wp.st47@gmail.com
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
-- Tim Starling
Hi,
I know that the software we use for our website is payed (www.whmcs.com) and you can add a "wiki" module. This module doesn't cost any extra money, but you can grap a add-on that costs money what will tune the Wiki CSS into your websites CSS (pretty cool do!)
But this is just MediaWiki: http://docs.whmcs.com/Special:Version And the payed addon is a encrypte source code..
Best,
Huib
2011/12/30 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
-- Tim Starling
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
They are using MediaWiki for their support site, which is perfectly OK. However, if they took the MediaWiki source code, closed it, and tried to sell it, that wouldn't.
On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 3:25 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I know that the software we use for our website is payed (www.whmcs.com) and you can add a "wiki" module. This module doesn't cost any extra money, but you can grap a add-on that costs money what will tune the Wiki CSS into your websites CSS (pretty cool do!)
But this is just MediaWiki: http://docs.whmcs.com/Special:Version And the payed addon is a encrypte source code..
Best,
Huib
2011/12/30 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
-- Tim Starling
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Kind regards,
Huib Laurens WickedWay.nl
Webhosting the wicked way. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Den 30-12-2011 05:02, Tim Starling skrev:
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
"distribute or publish" covers wen you put your additions for download, or otherwise gives away copies.
You can do any additions, keep it on your own servers, and sell the result to clients.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Starling" tstarling@wikimedia.org
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
And since we're not under the *Affero* GPL, you can modify it, *and make it publicly available*, and still not be constrained by the licence (I don't think I've got that backwards, do I?)
Cheers, -- jra
On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 9:15 AM, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Starling" tstarling@wikimedia.org
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
And since we're not under the *Affero* GPL, you can modify it, *and make it publicly available*, and still not be constrained by the licence (I don't think I've got that backwards, do I?)
You may be slightly confused or I may be slightly not a lawyer, but:
The Affero licence states that you may not use, distribute, or publish any licensed or derivative work under any other licence. The vanilla GPL states that you may not distribute or publish licensed or derivative work under any other licence.
It is therefore acceptable for Big Business Inc. to modify MediaWiki and **use** it as bigbusiness.com, however they may not sell or give (**distribute**) their modified version to any other company or individual unless they obey the terms of the License. So if whoever it is decided to modify MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, however that works, and then gave that to their customers to put on their websites, then they have violated the GPL, because they must make available the complete source of their **derivative work** which they have **distributed**. If however they have decided to modify MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, however that works, and then placed that on their servers at the request of a customer, then they have not violated the GPL because their derivative work is being **used** but not distributed.
This sort of thing gets complicated when you think about things like paid hosting - you're selling it and making it available for use but not distributing it. You'd think that they're breaking some provision by making money off of their modified MediaWiki but I'm pretty sure they aren't as long as the derivative work stays on their servers. (but is the HTML generated then also a derivative work? probably not?)
-- Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Collins" dcollin1@stevens.edu
On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 9:15 AM, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Starling" tstarling@wikimedia.org
On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right?
GPL 2.0 section 2 b:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks in when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK if you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what Huib meant by "closed source".
And since we're not under the *Affero* GPL, you can modify it, *and make it publicly available*, and still not be constrained by the licence (I don't think I've got that backwards, do I?)
You may be slightly confused or I may be slightly not a lawyer, but:
The Affero licence states that you may not use, distribute, or publish any licensed or derivative work under any other licence. The vanilla GPL states that you may not distribute or publish licensed or derivative work under any other licence.
It is therefore acceptable for Big Business Inc. to modify MediaWiki and **use** it as bigbusiness.com, however they may not sell or give (**distribute**) their modified version to any other company or individual unless they obey the terms of the License. So if whoever it is decided to modify MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, however that works, and then gave that to their customers to put on their websites, then they have violated the GPL, because they must make available the complete source of their **derivative work** which they have **distributed**. If however they have decided to modify MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, however that works, and then placed that on their servers at the request of a customer, then they have not violated the GPL because their derivative work is being **used** but not distributed.
This sort of thing gets complicated when you think about things like paid hosting - you're selling it and making it available for use but not distributing it. You'd think that they're breaking some provision by making money off of their modified MediaWiki but I'm pretty sure they aren't as long as the derivative work stays on their servers. (but is the HTML generated then also a derivative work? probably not?)
Ok, ok, I'll go look. :-)
Yeah, I was right.
That's what the AGPL does: it makes it a violation of license to make non- public changes to a GPLd app, *and then make it available as a webservice, without physically distributing the code*.
The GPL proper does not prevent that, which is the topic we're discussing here: since the MediaWiki code is not under AGPL, you can modify it, not release your mods, *and run it on your own web service*, and not violate the license.
If you distribute it outside your organization in such a fashion, though, *that* trips the traditional GPL.
Cheers, -- jra
Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com writes:
I know a lot of closed source projects that use MediaWiki and just leave a note that part xxxx is under license xxx by authors xxx.
???
Ok, so what projects are those? I don't have any interest in suing people (I don't think my small contribution to MediaWiki would give me standing to sue anyway), but I don't know of any proprietary projects that are based on MediaWiki so I'm genuinely curious.
Mark.
If you take a open source proyect, and develop another open source proyect based on it, you are forking. You must continue with the same license the original authors used. This is a must, if you can't convince all the original authors to allow you to use a different license (hard if theres a lot of then, easy if theres only one).
Forking is fun, but heres a caveat: the original proyect may go faster and develop features you may need, but you cant have in your fork. Forking is a good idea if you want to follow different guidelines, not a good idea if you have the same ideas of the original authors. Forking is sometimes obligatory wen the original authors are stubborn and too slow to update a proyect. Sometimes forking is a good idea if the original proyect is poisoned by bloat, and you want to use a axe and remove all the complexity (perhaps that was the case of firefox?). Normally is not a good ideas, and all open source projects have smarted up and include most features in "plugins", so the core is small, not bloated, and flexible for everyone need.
On 29 December 2011 07:31, Sajith Vimukthi sajith.vim@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I am planning to develop a new Open Source project keeping mediawiki as the baseline. I wonder how the liciening policy of mediawiki will affect my intention. Could somebody help me on whether it is possible to develop my own app using mediawiki and distribute it as an opensource project?
Thanks, Regards, Sajith Vimukthi Weerakoon, T .P No : ++94-716102392 ++94-727102392 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Sajith Vimukthi wrote:
I am planning to develop a new Open Source project keeping mediawiki as the baseline....
Nobody else said this explicitly, so....
FYI Sajith, MediaWiki has a very powerful third-party plug-in system ("extensions"). Maybe instead of modifying MediaWiki, you could just create extensions to transform MediaWiki into what you want. That would be much easier for you in the future -- you could upgrade MediaWiki transparently and still have your extensions work. If you "fork" MediaWiki instead, creating a new project, you'll probably never be able to upgrade and take advantage of future MediaWiki features.
DanB
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org