The PHP-Nuke Community and GNU/GPL

manik

In an attempt to try to bring some sense of community back to PHP-Nuke i have been going from site to site and asking everyone to join me in an alliance to stop the abuse of sites and their codes. Why am i doing this ?

As you know CodezWiz has stopped distributing his code freely because of another site charging for access codezwiz files. As well pcnuke has closed their doors because of the same abuse of their files. I could name site after site that has had their files misused, just recently Disipal was about to cose his site because of code abuse. Now the abuse has hit on our home front. dadanukes files are being used by another site in their downloads section. When will enough be enough ? We are going to lose every decent community support site to this unless we try to stop this from happening. Please voice your opinions and let dadanuke and all the above mentioned sites know that they are important to us and we value their contributions.

If you have any idea on how we can stop this abuse from happening again aside from not sharing the code with the community. Why should the rest of the community suffer because of a few bad sites.
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When you try and fail it hurts but when you try and quit you die.

Guardian · dadaClub Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 14

First of all, let me make it very clear I am not taking sides here and I neither endorse nor condone any particular activity of this nature.

The facts have been well discussed on many other sites including those you mentioned in your post. The GPL license permits anyone to redistribute GPL code for which they can charge a reasonable fee to recover the costs of bandwidth etc and indeed this site does that too with its 'Club', as does phpNuke.org and a great many other sites.
There is no obligation to even have the original authors permission to redistribute GPL code though many, including myself, would certainly argue that it is the morally correct and professional thing to do to seek that permission.

I whole heartedly support any site that develops modules etc for PHP-Nuke but the sad fact of life is that, if you do not want your work redistributed, you should write software for a none GPL product where you can specify your own license conditions.

manik · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the words Gaurdian I do not think anything can be done and please understand i am not trying to beat a dead issue. It just hit me personally and i cannot stand having my hands tied. There has to be a way to label the code so the owner can redistribute it without others taking advantage of your hard work. I will investigate even though ii know others have already done so. Even if it is released as something other then GNU/GPL. If you could, please, if you could, check into this as i will as well as i am not as versed as many others but determination is an awesome driving force.
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When you try and fail it hurts but when you try and quit you die.

Guardian · dadaClub Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 14

There are ways around it.
For example, Nuke themes - the code for the theme has to be GPL because it requires phpNuke to work, therefore it must have the same license as PHP-Nuke. BUT if you develop a theme, all you have to do is leave blank images in the theme package.
The theme package is GPL because it requires phpNuke to work but you can package the *real* images seperately, then you can retain copyright over them as well as specify your own license. The images on their own (provided they are packaged seperately from the code) do NOT require phpNuke to work so therefore the iages do not get gobbled up by the GPL license.

There is still nothing you can do to stop peole re-distributing the theme code but as the images in the 'code' package are blank, the theme is pretty useless.

The same thing can be applied to modules, depending on the module. All you have to do is make sure the module will work on its own. There is nothing to stop you using the same directory strucuture, even the same table names, so long as it works on its own and doesn't rely on phpNuke to work then you can specify your own license. You also have to make sure it doesn't use any native nuke code.
I use a Shop script on my sites that works either stand alone or with phpNuke, it has the same directory structure as nuke and you have the option to use its own tables which the installer creates or the core nuke ones. The script is sold as a stand alone product but by changing a few settings it works perfectly with nuke. As it is sold as a stand alone script, it does not *require* phpNuke to work so its not GPL and the author can (and does) encrypt his work - the fact that it CAN work with PHP-Nuke is a bonus.
Even though it is a blatant attempt to get around the GPL license and clearly *really* made for nuke is beside the point, the author took the time and trouble to make it work on its own and thats how it is sold and licensed and is perfectly legal.

Personally I have used many commerce type modules for nuke over the years and the one I use at the moment is probably the best one I have used - not because of functionality but because the author has had to think about what he is doing. For example, the templating system is SMARTY because it has to be independant of nuke so it is much, much more flexible - I could go on but I'd be going off topic Smile

Shixter · dadaMember Joined: Apr 22, 2007 Posts: 6

Couldn't you package it with an installation that requires a regi code that is provided when you buy the product? Thataway, it can still be redistributed per the license agreement, but for the custom made things within it, they would only be usable if the regi code (that was designated by the distributer) were entered during the installation.

I am sure that this could probably be overcome by the advanced coder in the beginning, but would bar the average joe from userping the hard work and intentions of the maker.

I mean, during the installation, code could call for verification of the code and only allow it once (keeping in mind issues that the user would have to alert the distributer about to reinstall). That would also make way to get compinsation from the user to the maker to use with multiple sites as with software.

Just my thought though.

dadaBIT · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 11:32 am Post subject:

Hello, maybe this will not change the world for you, then again maybe it just may. Listen, this is an eternal struggle and can only be resolved with the words and deeds of honorable men and women. If you encounter an issue with an individual, issue a polite yet firm request to cease and desist. If the subject is belligerent, then wish them a good life and move on. There is much new work to be done. Time will determine the guilt or innocence of us all.

-Kev
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