GNU Public License (solved)

[UserIsSimple]

Hi Guys!

For me it's very important to follow a legal way. I don't want to do something which is against the License of CMSMS. I've been working with products released on GNU Public License but i still do not understand this license completely. Sorry for that. So I have some questions:

1: Am I allowed to remove everything about "CMS Made Simple" in the admin panel? This means the user would not see anymore that it is a CMSMS, but he will see another custom name for the CMS. This would include in removing the note "© CMS Made Simple" at the end of each page.
2. For me it's clear that I will not remove any copyright notes in the code. Anyway my customers will not see it. But am I allowed to remove the copyright notes in the HTML code (e.g. Metatags)? I'm not sure because HTML is also some kind of "code" 

I do appreciate the great work which is behind of CMSMS. Since I've been working for a long time on my own CMS I know who much work it is.    Although I want to provide CMSMS together with some custom extensions and a lot of induvidual service to my customers. So it's maybe understandable why I want to change the name of CMSMS.

Sorry for the bad English.
Stefan

[jmcgin51]

this should answer all of your questions

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/support/commercial-license

Keep in mind that some modules have license restrictions slightly different from the CMSMS core.  Those decisions are up to the individual module author.

[UserIsSimple]

Actually you are right, a commercial license would solve my problems. But I'm not sure if my wishes anyway would work together with the GPL and I wouldn't need the commercial license. That's why I write in this forum.

Because I'm a student 300 $ for a single license is too much for me. It's right that I plan to sell websites (with the CMS) to customers. But with "customers" I meant friends, relatives and colleagues who need a private page or a website for a sport club. And 300 $ is a lot of money for them too. 

[Dr.CSS]

You can not remove any references to CMS Made Simple if you use any module made by calguy1000 and that is quite a lot of them, over 50 or 60 last count and from what I understand no other free cms will ever let you remove this also...

[UserIsSimple]

Ok, I've just copied the license note in the "module manager" which is obviously one of Calguy1000's modules.

# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# However, as a special exception to the GPL, this software is distributed
# as an addon module to CMS Made Simple.  You may not use this software
# in any Non GPL version of CMS Made simple, or in any version of CMS
# Made simple that does not indicate clearly and obviously in its admin
# section that the site was built with CMS Made simple.

So far I understand that I must leave a note about CMS Made simple in the admin section. But I do not have to leave the note on the front page (including meta tags).

But doesn't  Calguy1000's special license exceptions say that those modules anyway can not be used in a CMSMS with commercial license? (Quote: "You may not use this software in any Non GPL version of CMS Made simple" ) In my understanding this means:
  1: If I use the comercial licensed CMSMS I cannot use Calguy1000's modules.
  2: If my assumption in point 1 is wrong and I am allowed to use Calguy1000's modules, I would still not be allowed to remove the CMSMS copyright note. Because: Although it is allowed with the commercial license it is still not allowed whith using any of Calguy1000's modules.

So this means using the comercial licensed CMSMS would cause more new legal issues than solve others. The onliest possibility would be to use it without any of Calguys1000 modules. Sorry, if I understand this wrong.

... However, as far as I understand any software released under GPL without any license exceptions would allow to change the name of the software. A good example is the CMS Joomla which is a fork of Mambo. But I have to admit that I do not know the license details of that case.

[UserIsSimple]

Hm, it's sad that I do not get an answer. Either I'm totally wrong or nobody has a clue about those license issues (including me  ).

[Nullig]

It certainly reads that way.

I think, since it's calguy's licensing requirement, you should ask him directly. If you get an answer, it would be nice if you would share it.

Nullig

[uniqu3]

If you are planing to build websites for your family and friends then i realy do not see the point why you would want to remove the license in Admin area.
You should rather say that you want to sell it as your own product.
I do make websites for customers, but do not remove any CMSMS info in admin area, and also explain to the customers where they can find help, what is good for me so they do not bug me for every little thing they do on their website.

I would say if you are so wrried about the licenses and restrictions of calguys modules, you should go on and code a cms yourself

[calguy1000]

But doesn't  Calguy1000's special license exceptions say that those modules anyway can not be used in a CMSMS with commercial license? (Quote: "You may not use this software in any Non GPL version of CMS Made simple" ) In my understanding this means:
  1: If I use the comercial licensed CMSMS I cannot use Calguy1000's modules.

Exactly correct.

[UserIsSimple]

I would say if you are so worried about the licenses and restrictions of calguys modules, you should go on and code a cms yourself

I've done that already for more than 3 years. But since it gets more and more complicated I have decided to have a glance on other existing CMS for a possible changeover.

Anyway, actually should anybody be worried about license details but I know that nearly nobody does it.

Exactly correct.

Thanks for the clear answer. So for me this means that I will definitely not use the commercial license.

[Pierre M.]

Hello Stefan,

...Since I've been working for a long time on my own CMS I know who much work it is.    Although I want to provide CMSMS together with some custom extensions and a lot of induvidual service to my customers. So it's maybe understandable why I want to change the name of CMSMS.

I can't understand why you want to hide the name of the original copyrighted code. Think about the Sendmail/Exim/Postfix/Exchange headers in the emails you send and receive. Would the price of the email hosting change without these headers ?

As a free software consultant I select (good) free products and help/charge my customers with integration projects. I don't want to hide the selected brand ; because it is a selling point. My customers want reliable solutions. Not obscure student's hacks.

Who would buy a "pizza firewall" solution instead of an "OpenBSD" solution ?
Who would buy a "myquicky http" solution instead of a "Lighttpd" solution ?
Who would pay for a "POSIX aware OS" solution instead of "Linux hosting" ?
Who would pay for a "Stefan has hacked it for you" CMS instead of a true "CMSms integration" ?

Your customers can pay you to integrate and make improvements in the products they run.
But what I find really "heaven" in the GPL is that if you play well with the community (including your customers as users) your improvements can be merged upstream in the products ; this way everybody (including your customers) will have them and your customers get their features maintained by the community (may be for free -selling point- or still by paying you).
And the more we all do so the more the brand is attracting. And the ecosystem is growing and successfull.

Pierre M.

[viebig]

CMS Made Simple deserve to be mentioned.

What harm a meta tag or a bottom placed copyright link(private: in admin) can do to your sites?

That's the most simple and kind way to say: Thank you for CMSMS.

Also, you can develop a module or tag and make it public, or donate to cmsms, since in some way you plan to make money with it.

Hope that helps with your decision

Regards

[UserIsSimple]

I can't understand why you want to hide the name of the original copyrighted code. Think about the Sendmail/Exim/Postfix/Exchange headers in the emails you send and receive. Would the price of the email hosting change without these headers ?

I do not want to remove copyrights from the code. The only thing I've planned to do was to change the name from "CMS Made Simple" to something else. The purpose is because there are a few things which I do not like on CMSMS's name:

1) CMS Made Simple may confuse my current "customers" because they've used an other called system before.
2) I do not like the part "Made Simple" in a customer point of view. "Made simple" means for a lot of people also that it's a tiny CMS without a lot of functionality. And that's not true.
3) I don't like to use the name "CMS Made Simple" in manuals or emails. The name is just to long and even the abbreviation "CMSMS" is not easy to speak out. I will try to give you a hint what I mean:

With my custom name: The CMS XYZ is a simple and easy to use CMS. Open the admin interface of XYZ to made a change of your content.
And with the current name: The CMS CMS Made Simple is a simple and easy to use CMS. Open the admin interface of CMS Made Simple to made a change of your content.

Maybe you think these are just unimportant details. And yes they are details. But for me they are not unimportant.

So my current solution is to rename the CMS in the admin interface. But I will leave the copyright comment with "CMS Made Simple" in the footer. This will mayb  be confusing but it's the unique legal way.

[Dr.CSS]

All they ask is that you leave the stuff in the footer alone, on the login page and in the admin, that's all...

[UserIsSimple]

All they ask is that you leave the stuff in the footer alone, on the login page and in the admin, that's all...

That's exactly what I said:

So my current solution is to rename the CMS in the admin interface. But I will leave the copyright comment with "CMS Made Simple" in the footer. This will maybe  be confusing but it's the unique legal way.