Legal

I am not a lawyer. Item #10 of the licensing FAQ asks a particular question (my emphasis throughout):

10: Can I write a "bridge module" to interface between Drupal and another system or library?

but then goes on to answer a slightly different one (with specific regard to incompatible licences):

Created this thread to discuss:

http://groups.drupal.org/node/12631

Why won't anyone else sign? What is missing / confusing / distasteful about it?

I will take the opportunity to say that i realize that upholding it in court would be difficult if not impossible, but it is mostly symbolic. Also, it's not truly effective until every single copyrigth holder of Drupal signs it. (And no one knows who they are; potentially thousands.)

But what's wrong with a gesture of "Hey, you can do your thing, and I won't bother you. Go ahead and make money; I won't try to take it" ?

Hi All,

I've been looking into some differences between Drupal/GPL and CiviCRM/AGPL and wanted register my thoughts for consideration and/or further clarification.

http://drupal.org/project/zend_feed

That requires a third party non free library. I am not trying to troll btw, please don't see this as that. For me to understand what is going on, i need concrete examples.

The way I understand this is:

1. if drupal talks to code at the php level that code must be GPL, it DOES NOT MATTER how the code gets to the server, if they are going to call each other all code must be GPL

2. this does not apply if the code runs on the client side, javascript,css,etc

3. web services are exempt

http://drupal.org/project/wysiwygpro

Is something like that allowed:
A) on drupal's CVS
B) at all?

The title says it all, is the licence allowing us to completely remove any link back to Drupal.org ?

Because of ambiguities and regional differences in the interpretation of "derivative works" as referenced in the GPL, any Drupal contributor who wishes to do so is encouraged to add your digital signature, as a comment, beneath the following statement to affirm your agreement.

If a lawyer would like to suggest a better form or improved language for this manifesto, comments are encouraged. (A new discussion has been formed here to keep this page uncluttered.)

What is the basis for the claim of http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q7 ?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

Primary fact: Whether or not something is a 'derivative work' is defined by copyright law, not by the license.

From my reading, it seems the question is far from settled in the United States in regards to software. It seems to me that the legal validity of the claim "Drupal modules and themes are a derivative work of Drupal" is suspect.

See, for a example, http://www.rosenlaw.com/lj19.htm for a lawyer's opinion which counters the claims of the Licensing FAQ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License says that GFDL is the counterpart for documentation to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl, so I'm wondering if they are compatible, and if documentation published under GFDL may be packaged with modules in the Drupal.org repository?

Thanks,
Aaron Winborn
http://aaronwinborn.com/

http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/07/red-hat-asks-federal-court-to-lim...

More than simply reporting, “Package X uses license Y,” the FOSSology tool attempts to analyze every file within the package to determine its license. The license report is thus an aggregate of all of the different licenses found to be in use by a package. A single package may be labeled as “GPL” but contain files that use other licenses (BSD, OSL, or any of the hundreds of other licenses). Even if an exact license is unknown, the license may be identifiable by common license phrases.

http://www.fossology.org/

This wiki page is a place for comments and links that are helpful for making Drupal sites compliant with COPA, the Child Online Protection Act in the United States. Please add your reviews of contributed modules and links to site recipes.

A user recently noticed there are no copyrights or TOS at d.o. Interested folks might want to weigh on on the Drupal webmaster's issue for Clarify Copyright status of content on Drupal.org's website.

Thanks,
Aaron Winborn

Please add questions here to ask of the SFLC on behalf of the Drupal Association. Keep them short, specific, to the point, and phased as questions that can be directed at SFLC more or less verbatim. Also, please do not list questions that are easily answered on the SFLC web site.

Important links:
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/