Agreed that nobody should publish his code in the absence of an explicit license granting rights to do so, but it’s also very likely that his code would be deemed to be a derivative work of Discourse, and the GPLv2 license terms would apply. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out here already, the only parties with any standing to try to rectify the situation are the copyright holders of Discourse. Third parties can certainly encourage them to take action (as this thread is doing), but cannot pursue any action on their own. This situation is one of the (few) benefits to accepting contributions under a Contributor License Agreement, because it provides rock-solid provenance for all of the code in Discourse.
1 Like
Just to clarify because I think some may have misunderstood my earlier comment:
In this scenario, GPLv2 applies with respect to the Discourse code licensed to the plugin developer, and those requirements set the terms that require plugins to be distributed with a compatible license.
-
Discourse
Plugin Developer: GPLv2 -
Plugin
Plugin User: GPL-compatible license (“all rights reserved” is not compatible)
2 Likes
This is what underlies my OP. If the code is open source, there is implicit and explicit community benefit. The code is visible, and can be collectively discussed/improved on.
There are many ways that initial/primary developers/co-maintainers can make an income through plugins as a subset of their overall work — all built on the back of discourse core and other community contributions. Open source 101, if you like.
Whereas the legal discussion is an important one, for me open is the fundamental principle, and why I shared my 2c.
1 Like
I agree with what has been said about other ways to get compensation.
But I am most certainly not anyone that would dare second guess others “business model”
If it were me, I’d require Marketplace to be GitHub or other open-source repository and allow other in the Profile.
Not that a member would need to make a PR to Core, but most importantly others could see it and try it if they want to.
I like the idea of ongoing payment for support services.
Maybe a free and open-source version could be allowed even if a premium version had more advanced features. (not an easy thing to decide)
1 Like
What’s a “Drupal like marketplace”? Drupal is about 99% free, there are hardly any paid modules. Wordpress, Joomla etc have tons of paid modules and themes.
Drupal developers tend to work on a services model, you charge for your service, not for your code.
Also because drupal has a lot of core api’s that modules hook into it’s quite hard for your code not to be open source, although someone else probably understands the GPL a lot better than I do.
There was some talk about Drupal Apps a few years back, not sure where they ever got to with that. But Apps were more substantial than modules, and could be paid or free, and did other things like self update and things I think.
4 Likes
Interestingly, I have implemented 6 Discouse plugins in my first 3 months with Discourse (May 2015 - August 2015).
Then I was banned and forced to make my plugins GPL.
Since that I have implemented 0 (zero) Discourse plugins in the next 2 years (August 2015 - August 2017).
In the same 2 years I have implemented, for example, 26 extensions for Magento 2 (which is open source but not GPL).
So, it is obvious, which platform / license is winner and which is loser in my particular case.
2 Likes
AFAIK, the Discourse business model depends on hosting for financial income.
Not that they will change, but I’m curious, purely hypothetical, but if they were to, what would you consider a fair amount to charge for a developers license? I’m thinking something like between $500 and $1000 a year per plugin might be fair.
And still, even though your plugins are GPL, and many people here do not like your attitude or business model, no one has bought your plugins and openly put them up on a public website for download. Everyone could, but no one did it. Everybody has been respecting your business model.
13 Likes
As my mother always said, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”
2 Likes