Legal

This group should probably have more organizers. See documentation on this recommendation.

This is a working group for legal issues relating to Drupal. That includes licensing questions and planning. It should not be used as a legal advice forum; for that, consult a lawyer. If you actually have information from a lawyer about an issue that would be relevant to Drupal, however, that would be welcome.

Please be sure to read the FAQ before posting!

Licensing of configuration files?

Posted by pwolanin on December 16, 2008 at 5:25am

I'm doing a bunch of work on the apachesolr module at the moment. One area where I'm really t a loss is how to treat the .xml configuration files. There original "example" files are part of the Apache 2.0-licensed distribution of Solr. So, while our current versions bear only little resemblance to these examples, they are clearly "derived" from them. In fact, it's hard to imagine a practical way one could generate a configuration file that is not "derived" form the example files provided (since the docs tend to be a little scarce).

Q: Freelance Drupal Developer Questions

Posted by stephruth on November 23, 2008 at 1:43am

Hi Everyone, I'm new and would appreciate a little light shone on a few things for me...

I am an Australian budding feelance web designer and couldn't believe my luck when I stumbled across Drupal! I'm not much of a programmer you see so to be able to create dynamic content this easily is a dream come true. However... After reading the legal FAQ's I have a few concerns.

Drupal GPL 2+ and compatibility with Apache, MIT, Freeware License

Posted by yasheshb on November 5, 2008 at 9:14am

Hello:

We've developed a drupal module that uses 3rd party php libraries and a jQuery plugin. The module serves the purpose of stamping an uploaded

PDF documented for a drupal user.

The php libraries and iQuery plugin used are
FPDF 1.53 (http://www.fpdf.org) - This is a freeware license
FPDI 1.2 (http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi) - Licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0
FPDF_TPL 1.1.1 (http://www.setasign.de/support/manuals/fpdf-tpl/introduction) - Licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0

Drupal Association Donations

Posted by toursheet on September 26, 2008 at 4:22pm

So the short term is close to pass from December 2006 - any updated plans to incorporate in places other than Belgium?

Is Drupal a registered US 501(c)(3)?

No, as stated above, the Drupal Association has been incorporated in Belgium. We will explore ways of having sister / daughter organizations in different countries and what that means for different tax implications, but is not likely something we can tackle in the short term....

Drupal, GPL and module development

Posted by jwarner6 on September 24, 2008 at 6:39pm

Hi,

I am currently looking into using Drupal as a framework for Web
Application development. However, I was hoping that I could get some
clarification as to my potential obligations for modules that I would
develop under contract for my clients. My understanding according to
Licensing FAQ Question 8 (http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q8) is that my
obligation under the GPL extends to delivering the module to the client
under a GPL license and that I am under no obligation to distribute it any
further.

Is that a correct reading of your intent with regard to that FAQ question

Drupal trademark policy draft

Posted by dries on September 18, 2008 at 12:49pm

As announced, I've been working with the Software Freedom Law Center, lawyers, and the Drupal Association on drafting a public trademark policy for use of the Drupal trademark. We're all happy with the current draft, so this is the time to open it up to the community to get further input and feedback. Please read it carefully, and let us know if you have comments or suggestions. This policy is obviously an important one as more and more people starting abusing the Drupal trademark. Thanks!

Q: Can I relicence a BSD project to GPL, so as to host it on D.O CVS?

Posted by Bèr Kessels on September 10, 2008 at 3:49pm

Hello,

I am working on a base-theme yui-grids-framework.
First of all: there is such a project on D.o. already, but that one is a) dead, and b) suffering from the same thing I want to solve.

YUI grids is dristributed under BSD. From my tiny bit of legal knowledge, I recall that BSD can be relicenced as GPL.
In that case, I can simply do so, and then upload the results to Drupal.org CVS.

Court Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software (NY Times)

Posted by markIllinois on August 15, 2008 at 12:04pm

 A New York Times article "Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software" (August 14, 2008, NY Times Business section, p. C7) reports a decision upholding an open source license that had lost in the lower court.  A pdf of the decision is available at the Findlaw website, at URL

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=fed&navby=title&v...
This is not a broadly worded decision but the outcome points in the right direction, toward enforceability of an open source license.

Policy on commercial use of the Druplicon?

Posted by orthoducks on August 5, 2008 at 2:19pm

I need a logo for my Drupal development business, and I'd like to design something that incorporates an image based on the Druplicon. Before I go ahead I need to find out what the policy is on this type of use.

I've queried the Drupal Association about this, and I expect them to give me the authoritative answer, but I don't know if I will get it quickly enough. Hence, I'm also asking here.

How do you indicate a module should be released under affero GPL v3?

Posted by sdondley on August 2, 2008 at 4:07pm

So we aren't supposed to put in a LICENSE.txt file which is not automatically generated for us. So my question is, where are we supposed to indicate that you wish your module to be release under affero gpl 3?

http://drupal.org/project/flvmediaplayer

Posted by drupalnuts on July 30, 2008 at 9:34pm

In the readme file for this module it says you have to download http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player

However, that is a non-gpl item? Is this allowed?

XMLRPC restrictions

Posted by TotalMeltdown on July 29, 2008 at 6:33am

What are the restrictions, if any, on applications that interface with Drupal via XMLRPC?

Selling hosted Drupal Web sites

Posted by strayhand on July 22, 2008 at 3:24am

I want to use Drupal as a paid service for building Web sites and communities. The Drupal instances and modules would reside on my server. So basically I would be acting as an Application Service Provider. If I pursue this endeavor I will likely end up using the Drupal core, some contributed modules, and several custom modules.

Does the GLP License require me to make available any of my custom modules, configurations or patches made to Drupal?

Is GPL notice not required by GPL?

Posted by TBarregren on July 20, 2008 at 10:17pm

A couple of days ago, we who maintain a module or a theme that explicitly specifies GPL as the license on the project page, received an e-mail asking us to remove any text in the License field, to allow a newly introduced automatically generated link to appear. In the e-mail Larry Garfield also writes:

We also ask that you remove any references to a specific license from the code itself. Drupal.org automatically adds a LICENSE.txt file to all generated tarballs, which covers all code distributed through CVS.

That sounds reasonable. But is it permissible? The paragraph 0 of GPL version 2 start with following sentence:

This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License.

I have always interpreted that sentence as that I, in capacity of copyright holder of a module or theme, in each source file of that module or theme, must put a line that states that the source code is licensed under GPL 2 or later. I am now wondering if that interpretation has been wrong or unnecessary strict?

To put it differently, is everything required by paragraph 0 of GPL version 2 really met when a file, without a notice saying it may be distributed under GPL, is checked out of Drupal CVS.

Bridge modules: writing versus distributing, and incompatible licences

Posted by jp.stacey@drupal.org on June 30, 2008 at 2:04pm

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):

Discussion Re: Manifesto of Non-Interference

Posted by matt2000 on June 26, 2008 at 1:14am

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" ?

Is there a need for a "Legal Defense Fund" to assist module/theme authors targeted for legal action regarding derivative works?

Posted by matt2000 on June 23, 2008 at 10:35pm

No, this is silly.

64% (9 votes)

Yes, this is an important legal issues that will be decided by courts in the near future.

36% (5 votes)

Total votes: 14

GPL v. AGPL; Drupal & CiviCRM

Posted by sethfreach on June 23, 2008 at 9:02pm

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.

What about this one

Posted by drupalnut-gdo on June 23, 2008 at 7:06pm

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:

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
this does not apply if the code runs on the client side, javascript,css,etc
web services are exempt

Do you consider all modules and themes to be "Derivative Works" of Drupal or "Works based upon" Drupal?

Posted by matt2000 on June 23, 2008 at 5:31am

Yes, every last one.

39% (31 votes)

Some are, some aren't.

29% (23 votes)

No, only when code is definitely copied.

22% (17 votes)

No, never.

1% (1 vote)

I don't understand the question.

8% (6 votes)

These are not meaningful legal terms in my country / jursidiction.