Results tagged “open source”

In a follow up post to my attempt at explaining the GPL, it has become clear that there is one more very important thing that can still trip users up in trying to understand the GPL; and that is the difference between the software's license, and its copyright. These two concepts are often conflated, because in some respects they are related, but they have very different meanings, and convey very different rights to the people that hold them.

Copyrights and licenses are similar in that they both convey, or give specific rights to the people that hold them. Copyrights can only to be held by the people who create something, or to quote Wikipedia:

Copyright is the set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.

A license on the other hand, encapsulates the rights and privileges that a copyright holder grants to someone else vis a vis something they have created. In the world of software the license defines the terms and conditions of someone else's usage of that software, and their rights with regards to their ability to copy and redistribute that software.

Let's look at some simple examples:

• Let's say I create a piece of software. If I chose to make that software available to others, than I should construct a license that defines for the people I give the software to what it is they can and cannot do with that software. While silly, granted, I could for example tell all the people I give the software to that they cannot use the software on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is completely arbitrary obviously, but as the copyright holder of the software, that is my right.

• Let's say I create another piece of software, but instead of writing my own license, I turn to the Internet to help furnish a license for me. Why would I do this? Probably because I don't have the expertise to necessarily think of all the loop holes one of my customers might exploit to give away my software to others, or to potentially harm my business by suing me. So I find the template of a pretty standard software license, fill in the blanks, and use that. Done and done.

Alternatively, I could search the Internet and stumble across another license I am free to use with my software. This license is called the "GPL." It conveys a very different set of rights and privileges to the folks who download my software, but hey, the terms of the license suit me, so let's use that.

The Importance of Copyright in Open Source Software

Copyrights in open source software can add a new dimension of confusion, because in open source software where lots of different, unrelated people are collaborating to build something, it is quite possible that a single piece of open source software will have multiple copyright holders. Why is this significant?

Well, let's suppose that piece of software I wrote up above, you know the one that I licensed under the GPL? Well let's suppose it over the years two folks contributed heavily to the software: Jane and Susan. For the pieces they have written and contributed back to the software, they own the copyright. So now, the software that I created originally, is now in effect, jointly owned by me, Jane and Susan.

Then one day, out of the blue, I get a call from someone and they say: "Listen, I love your software and want to use it for my business. I am willing to pay you $1,000,000 for you to support my usage of the software, but I my company does not like GPL. Can you grant me a different license than the GPL?"

Holy moly that is a lot of money. Of course I want to say, "yes, yes, yes!" But I cannot change the terms under which I distribute the software unless I get the permission of every copyright holder. Jane and Susan may not mind changing the terms under which their contributions are redistributed, but they might also want to share in that $1,000,000. Heck, I would too if I were them. And that is just something I would have to work out with my fellow copyright holders if I wanted to see any of that $1,000,000.

Now in this example, relicensing the software is a very tractable possibility because the number of copyright holders is so finite. But for a piece of software like WordPress, this would be a virtually impossible proposition, because in order to change the license of WordPress, one would have to obtain the consent of virtually every single contributor WordPress has known. And if one person says, "no," then you are S.O.L.

This is why software organizations (like the Free Software Foundation) and companies (like Six Apart) who manage open source software require every contributor to assign the copyright of their creation back to them. That way there remains a single copyright holder thereby making future licensing decisions very easy to make and execute.

Copyright vs. Ownership

One final note. While writing this I found myself using the term "ownership" as a direct synonym to copyright. But I stopped myself because I realized that doing so might further confuse people as the term "ownership" will often imply a different set of rights. Consider this:

When I go to Best Buy and purchase a copy of Avatar on DVD, what do I actually own as a result? What I own is a physical disc and the right (or license) to watch its contents for my personal entertainment. All other uses are strictly prohibited.

In a certain number of years however, the copyright for Avatar will expire, and my rights vis-a-vis the DVD's contents will greatly expand. Once copyrighted material passes into the public domain, one is immediately free to copy, mix, re-mix, perform, and do what ever they want with it.

The DVD itself, the physical medium on which the movie is transmitted, would still be mine, exclusively; and the movie itself would still be owned by Twentieth Century Fox, but they would no longer exclusively possess the right to dictate to me (and others) how, when and under what circumstances that movie could be copied, performed and distributed. In this way ownership is perpetual, and copyright is not.

Summary

Hopefully, for the people who have stumbled across this blog post, this has helped you better understand some of the nuances between copyright and and software licenses. Please keep in mind though, that while I consider myself to be reasonably informed on these subjects, I am not a lawyer.

This blog post is owned by Byrne Reese and licensed under the Create Commons.

A friend of mine recently expressed their confusion over the GPL and how it all relates to the recent bruhaha happening in WordPress land. A quick search on Google will reveal a number of people attempting to answer the same question. Here is my own attempt to answer this question, paying special attention to how this may relate to WordPress themes and plugins.

In an effort to further everyone's understanding of the GPL, let me see if I can shed some light on what the GPL is and how it works.

1. The GPL governs ones rights to redistribute software using the GPL as a license.

2. The GPL gives me the right to take GPL code and redistribute it as is (provided that I also respect any related trademarks). For example, I can't take Firefox and redistribute it under the name "Firefox" since the name is a trademark owned by Mozilla and only they have the right to convey its name on software.

3. Believe it or not, the GPL also allows people to sell copies of GPL software. Most people don't understand this for one simple reason, "why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free." Selling GPL software just doesn't make sense in that regard. But it has been done very successfully. People used to sell Linux on CD - but the value of doing so was clear: at the time to download Linux could take days, so for many shelling out $29.95 for the 5 of so CDs was a huge convenience.

4. The GPL also says that you can take GPL software, and modify it and redistribute it as well. For example, Microsoft could take the OpenOffice suite, make tons of changes (under auspices of making it better) and then turn right around and sell it. --- There is a catch though, any change you make to GPL software AND also redistribute you must also make available under the same license. In other words, Microsoft would need to make any changes they made to Open Office freely available to others.

   Note: the key here is "redistribution." Because the GPL governs distribution only, it means that I could, as an individual, take OpenOffice, make changes of my own that are TOTALLY AWESOME (naturally) and, provided that I never give a copy of that software to a friend or anyone else, I would never have to share my modifications.

   Another Note: the above note is important because this is why it is reasonable and acceptable for someone to download a copy of WordPress, modify it, pay a consultant to modify it, add features to it, redesign it, etc, etc, etc. and never be compelled to share the mods they have made, or be compelled to open source anything else in their organization.

5. The GPL also says I can take a portion of code from a GPL program and include it in my own. For example, say I want to write a blogging platform in Perl. I have written most of the code myself, but I deem Movable Type's commenting system to be perfect. So I cut and paste large portions of it into my software. Under the GPL, this is equivalent to forming a derived work, and my new blogging platform is compelled to be GPL as well.

Now let's look at what makes the WordPress theme debate special:

• The GPL defines something called a "derivative work." When I take Firefox, edit the source, recompile and redistribute it, that forms an obvious derivative work. All derivative works are bound by the terms of the GPL.

• The GPL also defines a derivative work as a piece of software that runs in the same shared memory space as a GPL program. In layman's terms this means that if a piece of software, say a theme or plugin (even it is distributed separately from the another piece of GPL software), is designed to run in conjunction with GPL software, then the two of them, by virtue of sharing the same memory/process when they run form a derivative work, and thus, the theme/plugin is bound by the GPL.

Ok, why the debate?

Well, their is some ambiguity over what forms a derivative work. I believe this stems from the fact that most people don't understand technically the concept of "shared memory space." But I believe this FAQ answer from the FSF makes clear the intent of the licensor:

If a program released under the GPL uses plug-ins, what are the requirements for the licenses of a plug-in?

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means the plug-ins must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are distributed. (emphasis mine)

So, although the Free Software foundation states their belief that this forms a derivative work, their own language admits that it does not conclusively do so.

But Byrne, I still don't understand all this techno-mumbo-jumbo. Just tell me, why is there a debate?

Let's clarify one more thing that I have seen many people get confused about. The GPL is NOT law. It is just a contract between two parties. If those two parties have a dispute over the terms, or their interpretation of the contract, then it is up to a judge to resolve the dispute and assess damages.

What makes the GPL special with regards to contracts is that is a standardized one. Meaning tons of people have accepted and/or conveyed the license to others. So if a judge rendered a judgement that helped to resolve the ambiguity of what constitutes a derivative work, then just like that, we would have legal precedence to reinforce anyone else's claims contingent upon this definition.

Finally, let's suppose Matt does sue Chris Pearson, what could he actually get from Chris?

I do not personally think Matt can claim that he has suffered any damages (e.g. lost revenue) from Chris' distribution of a proprietary theme, so I don't think a law suit would result in any money changing hands. But Matt can ask a judge to compel him to comply with the license and force him, by way of a court order, to distribute his themes according to the terms of the GPL. That's it.

And that is my take on the GPL, especially with regards to themes. I have my opinion as to whether Chris should open source his themes, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter what I think because in my mind this amounts to nothing more than a contract dispute between Chris and Matt. So, have at it guys. Wait, let me get some popcorn.

Ok, now have at it.

First of all let me personally thank iThemes who originally subsidized the development of the Contact Forms plugin for donating the plugin to the Movable Type open source community! I am proud to call everyone at iThemes a friend.

Now, onto the show. I am happy to announce the final stretch for the plugin as we gear up for a formal production ready release. The plugin was revamped so that it could act more reliably as a "Movable Type Mail Form Processor" - on steroids of course. It has been more or less completely redesigned with a lot of focus being paid to a more polished user experience.

Once the plugin is complete, I will post all of the details and documentation over at Endevver. In the meantime, I thought people might like to see a few screenshots of the work in progress.

You can download the latest version of the Contact Forms plugin over at github and get support over at Endevver's tender.

(screenshots after the jump)

As my life has been slowly re-attaining equilibrium after having a second child, I have still somehow managed to find time to make things. Thank god, because making things keeps me sane when life wants to dog pile my schedule, and my personal, professional and family life. Of course I have never really stopped making things, I have only struggled to find the time to tell people about the things I have made.

So today I break the silence and begin to catch you up with some of the many things I have made recently. The first thing I want to tell you about is a new tool I am especially proud of: Image Cropper.

Image Cropper is a plugin, sponsored by Talking Points Memo (an Endevver client) and donated to the Melody and Movable Type open source community, that helps bloggers compose and craft the images used on a web site to promote their content and stories. Of course Movable Type and Melody both possess the ability to do this today natively, but the difference between an amateur and a professional blog like Talking Points Memo, is the time and care they put into the polish they put into every single blog post. TPM for example employs producers to create these images and thumbnails manually because Movable Type's default behavior is ultimately insufficient. To see what I mean, let's look at a quick example.

Suppose we are composing a story about a visit between Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy and we have the following photograph to accompany the story:

One thing you may notice about the photo is that the primary subjects of the photo are not centered in the photograph. This poses a problem because the thumbnail Movable Type will create for you automatically will crop out one or more of the primary subjects from the photo. Furthermore, at such a small size, the thumbnail created makes it difficult to determine who the primary subjects even are. This is why Talking Points Memo relied on a manual process to create these thumbnails so that they could produce the best possible result for their readers. Enter Image Cropper.

With Image Cropper we can override the default thumbnail and specify our own to produce an undeniably better result -- all from within Movable Type.

Furthermore, Image Cropper allows you to fine tune the file size and image quality of the image generated as well as annotate the image with text so that you can attach a photo credit or by-line.

To show you how easy it is to create results like this, here is a quick demonstration of the plugin in action:

To learn more about the plugin and to download it, visit the plugin's homepage over at Endevver. And if you need my help with a project, send us a note.

People who know me, know that I love Movable Type. In fact I have devoted much of the last five years to the product and its community. Therefore it gives me great pride and much relief to be a part of the launch of Melody, a new community-driven content management and blogging platform based upon Movable Type.

I have written extensively about what motivated me and others to create this project so I won't bother recapitulating that here.

What is likely to get lost today in whatever attention this humble project is likely to attract is any mention of the people who have helped take this project this far. Without the dedication of these people over the past six years Movable Type would be a fundamentally different product than it is today, and Melody might never have happened. So I would like to carve out a little space to say thank you to the following contributors to Melody and my friends:

• Jay Allen - While I have been remiss in mentioning it here, Jay and I are now partners in what is becoming a very successful Movable Type (and now Melody) consulting business. For Melody Jay has been playing the role of lead developer by helping manage code merges with Movable Type, organizing our source code and writing all of our developer contribution guidelines.

• Jesse Gardner - I have worked with Jesse for years. It was a pleasure to work with him on the design of Movable Type [dot org] and an even greater privilege to work with him on what I think is a damn fine looking web site and the home for our new community: OpenMelody.org.

• Tim Appnel - Tim has been a dutiful project manager as well as our system administrator taking on the unglamorous and thankless task of setting up servers, managing ACLs, and all the other stuff that makes the bits and bytes flow as God intended.

• Dan Wolfgang - Dan built out our web site, and has been first in line to take stuff off of people's plates when they become too full. Never under-estimate the value of load balancing people. Seriously.

• Mark Stosberg - Mark's invaluable experience in serving on the boards of several non-profits has helped us greatly in our process of writing our own by-laws for the Open Melody Software Group. He is also our unofficial ambassador to the greater Perl community in CPAN, where he helps to maintain a number of modules.

• Su - I have never known Su to be one who likes the lime light, so I will simply say this: he has been a consistent and reliable voice of reason within our group, which is essential when dealing with so many people who are as passionate as we are.

• Arvind Satyanarayn - The famous Movable Type prodigy-kid and author of Custom Fields took a break from college girls and parties to help contribute much needed code and infrastructure that will undoubtedly become essential to the project. He also surprised us all by merging all of Movable Type 4.261 into the latest development branch of Melody - hoooo-aaaah!

Finally, I would like to thank Six Apart. There is no doubt that many people will want to spin this initiative by the community in a way that impugns the company and the many people who work there and whom I call a friend. There is no way around the simple and basic truth: without them, this project would not exist and without their support of the project, I doubt it could reach its fullest potential.

And after all is said and done, this is what Melody is all about: these people, our community, and the many people who will follow. Thank you!

Hats off the WordPress community and Matt Mullenweg's insistence to promote open source design. Thanks to his philosophy and the courage of designers from the WordPress community, I am able to bring the Hybrid News Theme to Movable Type.

The Hybrid News Theme is the first newspaper theme for the Movable Type platform and enabled users to easily create a newspaper style web site:

If you are looking for the Hybrid News theme for WordPress, please visit their website.

Live Demo

View the live demo.

Download the Beta

This theme requires Movable Type Pro at is relies on custom fields for many of its advanced features.

• Download the latest

Bug Reports

This is beta software and is constantly being improved. Please submit bug reports at the following web site:

• Lighthouse Hybrid News Project
• Or submit them via email, making sure to use a descriptive subject header.

Installation

This plugin requires Movable Type Pro. It does not yet work with Movable Type Open Source. It is certainly my intent to support MTOS and Melody, just not at this time.

This plugin is installed just like any other Movable Type Plugin.

You will also need to install the following plugins:

• Config Assistant 1.01.
• Custom CSS
• Order 1.0
• Image Cropper 1.0

Features

• SEO enhanced:
  • Alternate HTML