27 Dec 2008
Mister Men

One rule for me and another for you

Written by Brian Teeman
one rule

Today the Joomla project made an announcement that sets itself apart from both it's users and the GNU GPL Licence that it stands behind.

Joomla is released under version 2 (not version 2.1 as the announcement says) of the GNU GPL Licence but it includes numerous pieces of code released under other licences. However the "joomla community" has apparently decided that extension developers do not have the same freedom.

From the latest licences.php file we can see that "Joomla! includes or is derivative of works distributed under the licenses listed below."

* BSD License
* GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL) version 2.1
* MIT License
* PHP License version 3.0

The fact that the PHP Licence itself is not compatible with the GNU GPL Licence itself is a different issue and one for another time.

The Free Software Foundation list numerous licences as being GPL compatible so if it is good enough for Joomla and the Free Software Foundation why is it not good enough for the Joomla Extensions Directory?

 

 

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About Brian Teeman

  •  

    As a co-founder of Joomla! and OpenSourceMatters Inc I've never been known to be lacking an opinion or being too afraid to express it.

    Despite what some people might think I'm a shy and modest man who doesnt like to blow his own trumpet or boast about achievements.

    But it seems that no blog exists without an "About" page so rather than talk about what an amazingly great guy I am and list all the things I've achieved (and failed at) in life from my Cycling Proficiency Test in 1976 to winning an award for the "UK Individual Contribution to Open / Source" in 2005 here are some links.

    {...}

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