Unfortunately SMF forces us to change our forum software

[wobo]

This sounds like whining but it is not. It's an explanation why a large and well known site has to dismiss SMF as forum software.

I admin a large site, based on Joomla! and an integrated SMF with more than 2,000 registered users, many more visitors and more than 100,000 postings in the discussion board.

This site is the central community site for German speaking users of Mandriva Linux. It is totally independent from any manufacturer, shows no advertizing at all (apart from the always visible Copright of Joomla!, SMF, Lewis Media and JoomlaHacks). Our site is financed by anonymous donations and we are completely non-commercial.

Now we had the idea to create a LiveCD based on Mandriva Linux with a snapshot of our complete website. This is to support users with small bandwidth and limited online time. With this CD they can boot without spoiling their system, read all the numerous articles, search for answers in the forum, all at their own pace and liking

This CD is planned to be distributed as ISO from our public FTP server as well as sent away as burned and labeled CDs - all for free, without any charge at all. It will also be given away at the major Linux event in Germany, the Linuxtag at our booth in the free project area. These CDs also will not contain any advertizing at all, except the above mentioned Copyright notices.

After reading the license of SMF I sent a mail to SMF, explaining our plan and asking for permission to use SMF in this way. After all SMF seemed to be free software, so I never thought this would be a problem at all, moreso as we would do a lot of cost free advertizing for Lewis Media and SMF.

Unfortunately Mr. Amacythe (Project Manager at Simple Machines) refused to give that permission. He wrote:

As for your request to redistribute our forum software, I'm sorry but that would be against our license agreement.  However, if you like, you may use screenshots of the forum so long as at least some of those shots include our copyright statement.

Mr Amacythe wrote that he is sorry -  but it was his decision, not a strict rule of the license. The license does not prohibit this way of distribution at all circumstances, it just prohibits it without written permission. This clearly shows that this permission can be given or refused, obviously just to Mr Amacythe's liking. In our case it was refused.

I wrote again and he answered that he has to discuss this issue with someone else.
First, we do not have the time to wait for the end of this discussion because the CD has to be created, tested extensively and then we have to produce the 150 CDs for the Linuxtag event. The sponsor who pays for the CDs and lets us use his machines to burn and label the CDs gave a strict schedule which we have to keep.
And second, after all we were refused the permission from someone who acted as the decision maker. How does it look when he first refuses and then tells me he has to ask someone else? Like "Ah, first say no. If they come back we can look at it more closely."

Now we are very sorry, but we have to say no.

Certainly we accept this decision but the consequences are obvious and inevitable:

1. We state that SMF is not free software as written in the license and all over the website. Were it free software I would not have to write these lines. Of course it is up to everybody how to license his work but it is no good manner to name a software free while it is not.

2, We have to explain the users who are waiting for the CDs why the forum snapshot is not there. And this has to be done in public, giving the reasons - simply because SMF did not allow it.

3. We have to change our forum software to some other software because we want to keep distributing these CDs and we want to have the discission forum on it. This again will cause questions which will be answered in a public announcement. In all these public announcement I will only write and state what I wrote here which is the truth, nothing more, nothing less.


Thanks to the users of this forum here. I did ask questions and some of them were answered like in every good forum. Everybody has been kind and helpful and I deeply and honestly regret having to dismiss this fine software because of Mr. Amacythe's decision.

Thanks for reading

wobo
Admin http://www.mandrivauser.de

[Dannii]

Firstly, it's Miss Amacythe.

Now, I personally know of less than 5 other companies that have been allowed to distribute SMF. It is nearly always refused.

Thirdly, SMF is free open source software. It is not "Free Software" According to the Free Software Foundation, but theirs is not the only definition, and nowhere have we claimed that it is.

[Compuart]

Wobo,

I'm sorry you are experiencing problems with SMF's license. There have been good reasons we chose for the current license, but I can certainly see your point of view in this matter.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'snapshot', but if it's just capturing the HTML-pages of the forum, technically it wouldn't be distributing SMF, but merely the HTML-pages generated by SMF.

As for written permission, it's something not often done. I apologies for the unclear communication about it. We're still in the process of creating policies for these kinds of requests.

[wobo]

Firstly, it's Miss Amacythe.

Ah, ok, that did not show by her signature. As your normal male chauvinist I presumed 'she' was a 'he'. Pls, Amacythe, accept my apologies.

Thirdly, SMF is free open source software. It is not "Free Software" According to the Free Software Foundation, but theirs is not the only definition, and nowhere have we claimed that it is.

The very first words of the Page "About Simple Machines Licensing" are: While SMF is free software....
As a fellow of the FSFE and being in a Free Software environment for years now I tend to see the expression in a certain light. So you may change the wording into While SMF is cost free,.... to make it clear that you mean "free" as in "free beer".

wobo

[wobo]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'snapshot', but if it's just capturing the HTML-pages of the forum, technically it wouldn't be distributing SMF, but merely the HTML-pages generated by SMF.

That's what I think as well and my first idea was to just go ahead and distribute. But I thought it to be good behaviour to ask nevertheless. So I asked and it was refused.

This morning after I posted the whole story I received a mail with an excuse and a permission but that was too late. As I wrote, we have deadlines and today is the last day the CD can be created (tomorrow is holiday). So I waited until late yesterday night and then wrote a mail to SMF and posted this message here.

And, to be quite honest, I was more than surprised about the strict refuse I received. My helpers, especially the guy who does the technical stuff never wanted to ask a second time, they were quite upset. I personally meant to give SMF a chance to think again but this took too long.

And reading this:

My instructions when I was the Communications Officer had been to tell all individuals that asked about redistribution to tell them, "No."  If it was a major firm like GoDaddy or Fantastico I was to forward the email to the Project Managers.

from the project manager of SMF was just like I presumed. First say "No" as normal policy is not what I would want from a software project I use. Only after I told SMF what their decision will cause suddenly there was a change of mind.

Sorry, but this is not the kind of software we want to use and advertize by our work. We will go on distributing our CDs without the forum snapshot and I will start looking for a GPL alternative for our website. Let me say this again: This has nothing to do with the quality of the software. I was totally content with SMF and changed from phpBB to SMF because of the better quality. It is only the policy which forces us to go and hunt for an alternative, which I regret.

wobo

[Amacythe]

I'm sorry that the reply was too late.  I have a daytime job and reply to emails when I get home.  I replied as soon as it was possible and a decision had been made.

In your first email you did not mention screen shots:

We want to distribute a live CD based on
Mandriva Linux, featuring the full content of our website, including the forum, frozen
at a certain date.

It was my first reply that stated

As for your request to redistribute our forum software, I'm sorry but that would
be against our license agreement.  However, if you like, you may use screenshots
of the forum so long as at least some of those shots include our copyright
statement.

And just for the case of the record, If you look at the first email I sent, I was not a Project Manager at that time.  I received the promotion in the midst of our interaction.

Again, I'm sorry this was not dealt with in a more timely manner. 

[wobo]

In your first email you did not mention screen shots:

Right. We never wanted to just show some screen shots as you suggested. So I did not mention them.

And just for the case of the record, If you look at the first email I sent, I was not a Project Manager at that time.  I received the promotion in the midst of our interaction.

Yes I see and my congratulations for your promotion. I named you "project manager" in my summup of the story because a) it is irrelevant for the issue which title you bear at which time and b) at the time of writing this summup you were already project manager. But whatever your title was or is - for me you were the person in charge of the decision I asked for.

But you miss the main point which turned up later where you wrote about your instructions. I wrote in a previous posting here:

First say "No" as normal policy is not what I would want from a software project I use.

If we had known this policy last year we may have never considered to use SMF in the first place. 

But this incident has a positive side as well. Our Technical Admin wrote in his comment on the CD (translated for you):

This incident clearly shows what can happen to your project if you use software which is not under the GPL. We have learned to be more careful in the future and we will make sure that we only use software which bears the GPL stamp.

Thanks that you (I mean your organisation) taught us this lesson.

wobo

[Ben_S]

Good luck with whatever software you choose .

[wobo]

Thx Ben_S, could you recommend any?

It will be hard to find a match for SMF, I know that. And were it not for the policy of Lewis Media I'd fight with biting & spitting to keep SMF on our website.

wobo

[H]

opensourcecms.com has some forum demos.

* huwnet hopes you will reconsider SMF

[dschuetze]

On the entry side of http://www.simplemachines.org are those:

SMF is the next generation of forum software, and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

This is not the same as the license will say !
completely free means i can do what ever i want to do with the code, without ask someone.
I think the law in some countries goes conform with my mind.
You can write this is freeware because the ware is free but not completely free.

The next thing, if you want to distribute your code in Germany with your own license (and you want this because you let user download the german language) then you have to translate the license. I think in other countries this is the same.
You don't have this trouble with GPL. The GPL is translated in the most languages and this is important if you want to play global.

So let no other users go in to this trap.

Regards
Dieter Schütze
Germany

[wobo]

opensourcecms.com has some forum demos.

* huwnet hopes you will reconsider SMF

Thx for the pointer to opensourcecms.com. I'll have a look.

* wobo thinks you have not fully contemplated why we have to change

wobo

[Dannii]

dschuetze, you just contadicted yourself. It doesn't say completely free, so don't act as if we have.

Actually, GNU specifically do not translate their licences. Their lincences are in English only. They have translated the meaning of their licences, but those translations are not legally valid:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html

wobo, remember that your database is still yours and you can use it without SMF. Have you considered using something like smf_api, which was written to be released under multiple licences? I'm not sure if we actually have released it under the GPL or anything yet, but prehaps if you asked we might be able to do that for you now.

[dschuetze]

Sorry, what is

contadicted

. I don't find this word in some dictionaries
I hope you read your own side.

[Dannii]

Contradicted sorry.
What I mean is that you're arguing against something we haven't claimed. You quote us and then immediately after that, misquote us.

[H]

I can get Microsoft Visual Studio express for free but that doesn't give me permission to reverse engineer and distribute it.

I fail to see why you cant make an html archive of your smf forum and then change the template so no SMF code is used

[wobo]

I can get Microsoft Visual Studio express for free but that doesn't give me permission to reverse engineer and distribute it.

Where did you read on any MS page that VS was free software? It's for free, but not free! (Free Beer != Free Speech). You may want to read up on the term "Free Software" and its difference to "cost-free software" like Freeware.

I fail to see why you cant make an html archive of your smf forum and then change the template so no SMF code is used

Because that was not the idea. Any user can download any thread or article as HTML page (or PDF for the Joomla! part). We produce a snapshot with an option of seamless transfer from offline to online status. Example, which may better explain the complete picture:

A user with a time limit in his internet connection or a call-by-call connection (both are quite usual in Germany) has no option to surf through the large forum and all the articles - same as with this website here. So, to support these users we had the idea to give him a snapshot of the whole site which he can read in his own pace and wherever he wants.

When this user finds a thread to his problem he can go online from within the offline forum and post his own message to the live forum, then go offline again and go on searching or surfing offline.

Any way like screenshots or an archives would not meet this idea.

wobo

[dschuetze]

Actually, GNU specifically do not translate their licences. Their lincences are in English only. They have translated the meaning of their licences, but those translations are not legally valid:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html

Thats right but i hope you know why !
You can't translate word to word from one language to the other. Any translation is not the same as the original because the people must understand what they reading. This is a localization.

You quote us and then immediately after that, misquote us.

No i quote only the one thing or have you see other quotes like

SMF is the next generation of forum software, and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

I know the way of quoting in your software 

This one thing can't missunderstood in many languages. I hope you do not a malicious deception on your side.
All i wish are clear words on your entry side this software is not completely free, that is the fact.
Its only free to use i can't do what ever i wan't to do.

[wobo]

SMF is the next generation of forum software, and best of all it is and will always remai n completely free!

All i wish are clear words on your entry side this software is not completely free, that is the fact.
Its only free to use i can't do what ever i wan't to do.

Absolutely right. This sentence cannot be misunderstood. The words "completely free" are clear enough - for us!

BECAUSE:
The example of huwnet talking about MS Visual Studio being "free" as well as eldacar's posting earlier in this thread show that Lewis Media / SMF have their own understanding of the term "Free Software". When Lewis Media declares their software as "free", the mean "free of cost", you can have it and use it without paying. As we say: "Free as in 'Free Beer'".

In short:
In a non-GPL world, the term "free" has a different meaning than in the GPL world. The problem is, that many people - including us - cannot see at first glance that they are in a non-GPL world when they enter SMF and that here "completely free" means they don't have to pay, nothing more.

So, as a sign of good will from our side we will help Lewis Media and put out a big red warning sign wherever we go and wherever we see an otherwise GPL-based website using SMF. This way we will do SMF a favour in informing not-knowing webmasters about possible license violation.

And we will do this "completely free"!

wobo

[Compuart]

'Free' is not a word that can be claimed by the GPL movement to comply with their definition, just like the definition of 'Open source' cannot be claimed by OSS. In the broadest sense of free, GPL isn't free either. The license prohibits several forms of distribution, all for good reason, but it still limits the things you can do with it.

Basically, you'd have to become a part of the cozy GPL-family in order to be able to use GPL freely (in the broadest sense). We've been there, and found it didn't serve both user and contributer of SMF (or YaBB SE back then) very well. That's not to say that other software might benefit a lot from being GPL-licensed, btw.