- SharePoint 2010 - 5 Hot Features to Look Forward To
- Selecting a CMS: How to Build a Short List
- Alterian Drops Immediacy, Morello Web CMS Brands
- Installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7
- How SharePoint 2010’s Metadata Services Increase Usability
- Gartner’s Top 5 BPM Predictions for 2010 And Beyond
- Open Text Reports Good Q2, Vignette Contributes to YoY Spike
Get the NewsletterJoomla Extensions Directory Now Exclusively GPL
The Joomla Web CMS project — as many of you well know — is based on the GNU General Public License (GPL). This means, among other things, that the Joomla project generally has an ethos of encouraging collaboration, community and free software.
The Joomla team confirmed in 2007 that both Joomla v1.0 and v1.5 were released under the GPL license. Now, the Joomla folks have taken things one step further.
Want to be Listed? Must be GPL
As of midnight July 1, 2009 all extensions featured on the Joomla Extensions Directory (JED), will need to be licensed under the GNU GPL. The JED features over 4500 extensions as we speak, both commercial and non-commercial.
Since March this year, only Joomla extensions licensed under the GNU GPL have been accepted into the JED. Now, every extension that does not comply with the license will be unlisted in the directory.
Want to be Listed? Must not be Encryped
The same goes for all encrypted or encoded extensions, regardless of their license. This move will be welcomed by those who have been frustrated by extensions they have been thus far unable to modify — encrypted or encoded extensions are effectively static as delivered. This is something which has been seen as contrary to the open source mission of collaboration and freedom and has been a source of some tension in the Joomla community.
Joomla Team is Not Anti-Business
The Joomla! team says this:
Third party developers are a valued part of our community and in order to make this transition as easy as possible for them we selected a long notification period. This change is designed to strengthen the project's active commitment to its core mission, vision and values as articulated in September 2008.
Many previously proprietary and partially closed-source developers of commercial extensions have joined with us in the JED and released their Joomla extensions with the GPL license. We are confident in keeping the vast majority of popular commercial extensions in the JED due to the developers' willingness to work with our team.
Moving in the Right Direction?
Personally speaking, I see this as an important step towards an even better and more powerful open source community, and as a good thing which will lead to an even broader acceptance of Joomla as a valuable and dynamic project in the sector.
What do you think?
About the Author
Kristoffer Sandven is a professional SEO and Joomla consultant, living in Norway. He's the author of www.joomlablogger.net and writes regularly about Joomla and SEO related subjects.
Was this article useful?
Email It
Stumble It
Add RSS4 Reader Comments
Leave a Response
Processing...
From our Job Board View all jobs
| 
Jobs RSS feed
| Post a job right now
Featured Events View all events
| Events RSS feed
| Add your event
- Feb 17, 2010 – Webinar: 4 Essential Strategies for Advancing Your Website's Business Impact
- Feb 26, 2010 – Intelligent Content 2010
- Apr 21, 2010 – Drupalcon San Francisco 2010
- May 5, 2010 – CMS Expo 2010 (Evanston)
- Oct 7, 2010 – HartmanEVENT 2010 - Social Media & Mobile Usability
This is good as well as a bad news...its Good That....All Listed Extensions Will GPL....but What If someone want a Commercial Extension....
I fully support this move. Commercial component developers are not being barred from adding components into the directory as long as their work is fully GPL. I have seen a lot of grumbling about this among the folks that code using code encryption to lock up their code.
I hate it. Nothing sucks worse than having paid for a encrypted component which breaks and cannot be examined, repaired, or fixed on your own. Yes you can wait for support, and sometimes they even come through with a fix, but my experience with encrypted code has been nothing but bad news in the Joomla! community.
Open source is all about self determination. Non-GPL based software destroys the model. I for one applaud the OSM decision.
This is a bad move. I don't use any commercial extensions on my site but that is my choice. Why remove the choice from users? If an extension is encrypted or non-GPL and this is a problem then choose a different extension.
We have been developing commercial extensions for Joomla an affected by this move. However, we believe overall it is a good direction for Joomla. Those previously offering commercial only extensions will have to employ an open source business model, which when done correctly can be just as profitable, yet better for your users. We've since decided to release all our new extensions Open Source.