Posted by Anonymous on July 13, 2015 at 9:13am
Is there a possibility to use Drupal on a different license than GPL (maybe there is some kind of paid license for companies that don't want to public the code) ?
non-GPL license
Is there a possibility to use Drupal on a different license than GPL (maybe there is some kind of paid license for companies that don't want to public the code) ?
Comments
You do not need a different license to use Drupal closed source
There is no requirement in the GPL to publish the source code.
Please see the answer to the GPL FAQ Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?. To quote:
(Technically, any custom module or theme you develop that are combined with Drupal is viewed as a "modification" of Drupal.)
Please also see The Drupal Licensing FAQ #8: If I write a module or theme, do I have to give it away to everyone?
However, if you want to keep your customized code closed source, it is strongly advised that you have anyone that has access to the source code sign a NDA or a contract that says that they're not allowed to make the source code public or transfer it to a third party. As a general rule, the LWG (tasked with sorting out licensing issues in the Drupal.org repo) will not request deletion of code posted in the repo unless there exists a signed NDA or contact that makes it clear that whoever pushed the code to the repo did not have the legal right to do so.
NDA
I am not sure you can do this gisle. You are in effect trying to override the GPL license. Which one would take effect if it came to the crunch. The GPL license which says you can distribute the code or the contract which says you can't.
There is a difference between
There is a difference between "trying to override the GPL license" that was applied to code committed to Drupal's git repo and code that came from a private repo. That code has a GPL license because users currently agree to use that license on everything they upload when they agree to the Drupal Git Repository Usage policy.
I think @gisle's point about the NDA is that if the code doesn't exist on Drupal.org and is instead only maintained in a private repo, an NDA or employment contract governs what someone given access to the code can do with it. The clauses in the GPL that require derivative work be licensed as GPL only apply if the work is distributed.
An NDA does not trump GPL for code being distributed, but the GPL is not automatically applied to code that isn't distributed and only applies to much of the css and javascript assets hosted on Drupal.org because of our git policy... not because it is a requirement of the GPL license.
Ok, thank you very much.
Ok, thank you very much. However, in the company where I am working it is not allowed to use CMS or anything on GPL license. It is why I am asking if Drupal can be used on another license.
Drupal is only available under GPL version 2 or later
No. Nobody can legally offer Drupal under any other license than GPL version 2 or later.
The Drupal source code is made up code contributed by literally thousands of independent developers. Each has committed to making his/her code publicly available under GPL version 2 or later.
To offer it under any other terms would require an agreement from every single one of them. The logistics of getting such an agreement is impossible and this is also politically infeasible (as many of these developers are strongly committed to free software, and will refuse any such request).
Ok thank you very much for
Ok thank you very much for quick answer