When GPL Becomes Almost-GPL — the CSS, Images and JavaScript Loophole 224
New submitter sobolwolf writes "It has been apparent for some time that many developers (mainly theme designers) are split-licensing PHP-based GPL distributions, releasing proprietary files alongside GPL files with the excuse that CSS, JavaScript and Images are 'immunized' from the GPL because they run in the browser and not on the server. This is almost always done to limit the distribution of the entire release, not just the proprietary items (most extensions will not function in any meaningful way without the accompanying CSS, Images and JavaScript). Some of the more popular PHP-based GPL projects, like WordPress, have gone as far as to apply sanctions to developers distributing split-licensed themes/plugins. Others, such as Joomla, have openly embraced the split-licensed model, even changing their extension directory submission rules to cater specifically to split-licensed distributions. In light of all this, I would like to ask the following question: While it seems to be legal to offer split-licensed GPL distributions, is it in the spirit of the GPL for a project such as Joomla (whose governing body has the motto 'Open Source Matters') to openly embrace such a practice when they can easily require that all CSS, Images and JavaScript be GPL (or GPL-compatible) for extensions that are listed on the Joomla Extensions Directory?"
GPL "Infection" (Score:5, Interesting)
It's people like this poster who promote the whole "infectious" GPL crap that Microsoft et al have been capitalising.
This behaviour ("split licensing") is perfectly fine, legal and moral.
The GPL is all about preserving access to code. If you use GPL code, you have to publish that code. If you make changes to it, you need to publish those changes as well. This is to stop people "proprieterizing" GPLed code by making a few incompatible changes and releasing it.
The GPL doesn't mean that if you include a GPL library, you need to open source your whole project. But people are afraid it does mean that, due to people like the poster, and Microsoft's FUD. If you want to know why people are shying away from the GPL, and view it as a threat, look to the article submitter.
Ask yourself, what would RMS do? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, he'd chew his hair and wax poetic. We know that already, but what would the poem say?.
I suspect it'd say: I'm sorry, but CSS very much is code. Not in the sense true languages are like C++, Python and PHP are. Ok, I'm not so sure that PHP qualifies. But anyway, the reason that even so piddly not-real-languages are part of the code is that it's nearly impossible to use the real code with the underlying CSS underpinnings that, actually, pin the boxes to the right place on the screen. Go ahead, take some huge news site, remove the CSS from it and see if you can still use it. I bet you can't. It frequently ends up looking like an application that magically put all their widgets rooted at 0,0 in the window. It's useless. Sure, it's all there, but it's useless. Thus, it has to be a rather important part of the "code". It takes both the output of the underlying framework langue and the CSS to make the result usable. Otherwise it's like compiling C-code into assembly, but for the wrong chip.
I'm quite sure this violates the principal of the GPL. I'm not sure about the letter of the law, since IANAL. But it sure smells like a GPLv4 is ripe for the picking.
Re:First world problems (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't hate the GPL, I just hate the politics behind it.
When something is GPL, the people come out of the woodwork to fork it, reverse engineer it and otherwise turn it into something it was not supposed to be. I've had this experience first hand, and quite honestly I'm not willing to deal with this again.
On the other side you have the BSD licence where redistributing the source is not a requirement, and you can pretty much keep it as it was designed to by telling people who fork it to change the name of the product.
What I'm getting at is that the spirit of the GPL is to keep software "open", not so much free. When software is open you can download it, compile it and add whatever tweak you need to it to make it work in your environment. You can do that with BSD and you can do that with GPL, but the latter would like you to contribute your changes back. This works up until you get into Patents.
As soon as Patents come into play the GPL is now unworkable, since those tweaks may violate patent licences. So this is why the "binary blobs" exist in Linux via shims to skirt the GPL licence.
This is also what happens with these split licence PHP/Javascript/CSS things. The font or image may be subject to CC SA, but not CC ND. So someone may produce a theme or plugin for a CMS like wordpress or Joomla, but the only part that is really open is the part that inter-operates with the CMS. The Javascript and CSS ... well let me just tell you this, I've DMCA'd people for taking my javascript because they didn't ask. If you want to learn how it works, I'm don't care, but if you outright copy it, that is not learning, that's stealing, and I never licence anything under the GPL. I will licence things under BSD if it's basically throw-away code. Otherwise it's "All rights reserved." As I said earlier, I won't deal with GPL projects because people will just fork it so they don't have to give their changes back.
Quoted the plain text of the license, silly (Score:3, Interesting)
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.
This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.
I don't understanding what it's implying, you say? That's not an implication, that's a plain declaration, and in case anyone was too dense to understand
"you must license the entire work, as a whole", they repeated it AGAIN, saying "the whole of the work, and all its parts".
As for "if you're using the stock GPL license" look at the VERY FIRST LINE of the license, even before the preamble:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
So yeah, you're using the stock GPL license. Funny you want to act like you're an expert on the GPL, even though you've clearly not even read the FIRST LINE of it.
Seriously dude, it's okay not to be THEexpert on everything. You don't have to act like you know more than everyone else on every topic and act like I"M clueless when
I've actually taken legal action under the GPL, so I kind of know WTF it says. Next time, instead of arguing from ignorance, try reading the darn thing and learning what it says. It's not that long.