Comments on: Modifications policy changes, upcoming modification site upgrade, and more…

By: Arantor

Arantor — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:31:06 +0000

Interesting point: you do know that if someone buys a GPL paid plugin they’re good to just give it away for free?

I support this motion, because it means that those who want to make things for a small cost have a little more protection against being shafted.

Might even have to try MyBB out again, see if it’s worth moving from SMF.

By: vbgamer45

vbgamer45 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:57:00 +0000

Excellent move! I had thought about developing addons/integrations for MyBB in the past but was worried about the GPL license. Glad you are moving to less restrictive license this should help bring more people to MyBB along with the new mybb.com domain.

By: Ryan Gordon

Ryan Gordon — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:31:42 +0000

@Daniel: That’s also why we’re putting in regulations to make sure that not just anyone can come and sell commercial plugins.

By: fabo92

fabo92 — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:57:16 +0000

@StefanT I hope that will be so! I love MyBB but I don’t want to pay for a plugin!

By: StefanT

StefanT — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:27:30 +0000

@Daniel: Well, that’s why we want to support free plugins…

By: combus

combus — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:05:16 +0000

Thanks for the clarification Ryan. From the beginning I thought the GPL was going to be enforced on every single plugin/theme to be added to the mods site, and the whole blog post seemed to confirm it (or at least until MyBB 1.6 and v2 come out). So that was my major concern, not being able to release anything at all, because I’m not releasing anything with a GPL license in a near future.

Also, by archived I meant like what was going to happen to the old mods section, and old forums.

Though, I think I’m much more clear on the licensing issue now, Thanks Ryan.

By: Ryan Gordon

Ryan Gordon — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:49:39 +0000

combus, at this point it is up to Alan Crisp whether or not he wants to remove the ability to add custom licenses in the next version. It will be legal to do so when we MyBB 1.6 is on the LGPL but whether or not Alan decides to allow them on the mods site is not decided yet.

We will definitely be allowing these type of licenses in the future, but there will be processes you will have to go through and certain limitations in order to do so first.

We don’t just want somebody coming along and releasing a paid, proprietary mod and then never supporting or maintaining it. The processes and limitations will relate to how we regulate that on the new version.

I’m not sure what you mean by archived, but we won’t remove anything you put up on the mods site, as long as it doesn’t contain a virus (or something to that effect), combus.

By: combus

combus — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:12:20 +0000

@Ryan Gordon: When you stated that “You can put in your own licenses on the mods site as well. You just can’t change for plugins/themes on the mods site.”. You mean that I can still use other licenses aside GPL, at this moment. But it won’t be applicable when the new mods site is complete, and by that time whatever I released will be depreciated along the old mods site.

I really hope the new blog post comes along soon, because I don’t want to start releasing stuff that will be archived in a really short time due a yet another change on the licensing scheme. I am honestly concerned about how this is going to end up.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:12:47 +0000

Not sure if that will temp me to move to mybb from phpbb.

Why should one pay for mods for a free product in the first place?

I understand if the author ask for a donation, but when someone is forced to pay for a plugin for a piece of software that is free, it a different story. Also just because you paid for a plugin, it does not mean that you will get better support. Just my views.

By: Ryan Gordon

Ryan Gordon — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:19:22 +0000

Lennart Sauter. Creative Commons licenses should not be used for software. It was created for things like graphics.