Thanks for the clarification. IMHO GPL2 is unclear when it comes to assets distributed to the client including JS, HTML, CSS, images, etc. For server software like SQL Servers, Web Servers, OSes, etc., this is much more obvious, and there is a ton of precedence for companies doing this. Again see Google.
In that regard, I think your licensing strategy is very reasonable.
Freedom is a matter of perspective. A license that is 'free-er" for exploitation by business, is not freer from a user’s perspective. The GPL is specifically about ensuring freedom for the user, where the implicit assumption is that the user and developer can and must be interchangeable. From a user’s perspective, the GPL is certainly freer, in that it guarantees their freedom to use the software and derived (and distributed) works.
I want to understand the implication of GPL - if I wanna modify discourse for my own website to actually include some features for my particular use case, but I am not selling / distributing the code, is it legally allowed?
Yes. The GPL does not restrict your freedom, it protects it.
That said, most of the time you do not need to make changes to Discourse core, you can as well write a plugin for it. And this plugin has no license obligation if you don’t want to distribute it.
Hi hellekin,
So you mean yes I don’t need to distribute my changes as long as I am not selling discourse right? My use case is quite complicated so not very certain if plugin would be sufficient.
William
Yes right. Before diving into Discourse core changes, I’d try the plugin way because you’d have to maintain your own fork otherwise, which might prove much harder in the end. Maybe you should take the time to have a chat with the Discourse team on a consulting basis before doing that: they might be able to guide you through the plugin way or find ways that won’t require you to maintain your own fork.