Open Source?

[adam]

Will SMF be Open Source?

[klumy]

SMF has the same license as YabbSE.
So I think yes

Have a look here
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?threadid=195

[David]

SMF will not neccesarily have the same license as YaBB SE.

[Wezz6400]

Maybe a different license, maybe not. Doesn't matter to me that much, I know I will be able to use it for free and change the code in whatever way I want and make mod for it. I don't see any problem. At least not until I will have to activate it like Winblows XP and office XP.

[Jeff Lewis]

It may have a license similar to Invision.

[adam]

If its going to have Invisions license may I point out the may not part of the license;

You may not:
permit other individuals to use the Software except under the terms listed above
reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works based on the Software for distribution or usage outside your web site excluding those applications described above
use the Software in such as way as to condone or encourage terrorism, promote or provide pirated Software, or any other form of illegal or damaging activity
modify and/or remove any copyright notices or labels on the Software on each page (unless full license is purchase) and in the header of each script source file
distribute the Software <-------
distribute individual copies of files, libraries, or other programming material in the Software package
distribute or modify proprietary graphics, HTML, or CSS packaged with the Software for use in Software applications other than Invision Power Board or web sites without written permission from IPS

The part the <--- is pointing to makes it not open source.  So if SMF does use invisions license say bye bye to open source.

[Jack.R.Abbit™]

It may have a license similar to Invision.

Jeff said "it may have a license similar to Invision".... don't go misreadiing his statement and assume that it will be the same license.

[jack]

You may not:
reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works based on the Software for distribution or usage outside your web site excluding those applications described above
use the Software in such as way as to condone or encourage terrorism, promote or provide pirated Software, or any other form of illegal or damaging activity
distribute the Software <-------
distribute individual copies of files, libraries, or other programming material in the Software package
distribute or modify proprietary graphics, HTML, or CSS packaged with the Software for use in Software applications other than Invision Power Board or web sites without written permission from IPS

I think that all the above (I've cut a few bits out) would probably disqualify it from being an Open Source license, not just the distribution clause. Of cource, I'm no expert in the matter, ask the OSI to be sure.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. As long as the ability for me to mod it and fix it (and distribute my mods & fixes) remains, that's what's important in this project. The dev team have allways been a reasonable bunch & I believe will still provide exceptions for individual projects where necessary (such as integration code to integrate with other applications).

[David]

We all understand people want to take the code and modify it, use it for other things, etc.  We won't turn our backs on our users.

[Wezz6400]

I haven't read the license miself but I do know invision is not free, it's simply a unlimited trial, ie. free untill the dev's decide otherwise. Are you considering of doing that also?

[David]

Wezz, we havn't really had a good hard license discussion yet.  As the beta aproaches we will need to.  I believe the entire team intends to always keep SMF as a free piece of software.  This was something Jeff stressed in our initial chat when we introduced these changes.

[Wezz6400]

Alright, I know it will be free but technicly invision is free also. I was not suggesting that it wouldn't be free in the future, I was just asking if you guys were considering something like that in the license. I don't expect so but I was just checking.
Oh and don't sweat it, I do beleive SMF will be free now and for ever. I had my doubts, I had.

[Jeff Lewis]

It will be free no worries, but we need to protect our code. Chances are there will be extremely tight restrictions on who and and can't distribute the code.

We were screwed over a couple times already and we don't intend to have to hire lawyers again.

If it makes us "not open source" so be it, it doesn't mean people can't MOD their forums or create MODs.

[Wezz6400]

For me it's very simple. Right now I am allowed to use SMF for free and modify the code as I wish for personal use. I am also allowed to make a mod out of those modifications if I think it's interesting for more people. As long as I can keep doing that I don't see a problem.
I know about at least one of those screw overs and I like it as much as you do. If you change your license to prevent that I think you're doing something good. Protecting your code is not only good for you but also for the project. ie preventing something bad.
And about the open source stuff, every un-encoded PHP script (most of them) is open source in a way. With the script you get the source, and can change it. With a desktop program that works different.

[Joshua Dickerson]

uh.. open source only means that you can view the source. Since this is PHP and I don't think they will be buying zend products anytime soon, I don't think they will be making this 'not open source'.

[jack]

uh.. open
source only means that you can view the source.

I'm afraid it doesn't .. that's one part of it, yes. Unfortunatley, there's a lot of confusion over the term because people mistakenly label thigs as open source when they are not.

The definition of 'Open SOurce' is here : http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php

Disclaimer : I'm a bit of a definition zealot (hell, I won't accept we've lost the war over 'Hacker'), but I'm not an Open SOurce zealot. The amount of openness that SMF and YSE has suits me fine for my purposes.

[David]

until now i didn't know that yabb got screwed over (shows how much i know)

It was not publicized for legal reasons.  But yes, it reuqired us to hire a lawyer.

[Joshua Dickerson]

I don't like how opensource.org is the determining factor for everything open source.

[[Unknown]]

Groundup, Jack's right.

For example, vBulletin is *VERY NOT* open source, yet you can view it's source.

-[Unknown]

[treo]

what OSS is for me:
You can read the source, you are allowed to modified it and its free.
That's what it is for me.