Plugins and licensing

Re: Plugins and licensing

by Howard Miller -
Number of replies: 3
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People who sell Moodle stuff generally also sell hosting. That very effectively restricts access to the source code.

You cannot use the Trademark to sell commercial services. If that answers your last question.
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Plugins and licensing

by Gareth J Barnard -
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Dear Will,

Also, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a developer, if I was a lawyer, then I'd be rich, but I'm not, so I'm not rich.

My understanding:

  • GPLv3 is a legal latch that makes the code open source for anybody to use / see / copy / adapt / modify if they have a copy of your code. Once set it cannot be 'unset'.
  • All Moodle 'PHP' code must be GPLv3 not because Moodle says so, but because Moodle core code is GPLv3 and GPLv3 says so because of your code being a 'plugin'.
  • But notice that I say 'PHP' code, other 'code' like CSS / SCSS is a bit of a grey area and that is what others have done to restrict copying as there is an element of 'Artistic intellectual property' - i.e. I'm thinking more of themes, but could in theory apply to other plugins too.
  • If you want to distribute on moodle.org then the plugin must be fully open source and freely available.
  • You cannot use the word Moodle to advertise commercial services, only Moodle Partners can do that, see: https://moodle.com/trademarks/.
  • I suggest that you fully read https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html and the FAQ etc.

Also:

  • Has it been done before?
  • I see from your profile that you're new here, so what about taking a different approach? In that create good open source code, publish on moodle.org, get a reputation, then people will come to you for bespoke work. So think that you're in the service industry rather than manufacturing. I hope I'm quoting Martin D here (I heard via a third party) along the lines of - "The code is free, time is not".

Gareth
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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Plugins and licensing

by Will Edwards -
My plugin will hopefully be really useful. I have been using Moodle for a while and want to extend it.

That is a great quote - "The code is free, time is not". I am going to think long and hard about this - especially in relation to David's post about copyright/left.

Thanks again.
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