All add-ons become GNU GPL if they are un-maintained

[rainmotorsports]

The fact that you want an automatic shift in license without any further input from an author after submitting a resource here is already them giving up something of their own. No matter what license it is. Not going to fly with any serious author or most even generous small ones.

 

[Mouth]

Forcing devs, eh, it won't bode well, can't see anyone agreeing to that.

Yeah, this is the bit I'm struggling to wrap my head around.
If I, as a dev, wrote code for the XF community and choose to earn revenue from it and support it, then one day chose to abandon it and no longer participate in the XF community or provide suport for my add-on, and also chose not to remove it or unmaintain prior to the housekeeeping process (which I agree to when initially submitting my add to RM), then why would I care (since I've purposefully abandoned it) if the license was changed to GPL?

Leave you car parked on the side of the road for too long, and the government will tow it away and make you pay for it. You choose not to action it prior to towing or whilst compounded, you lose rights to ownership.
Have a loan on your car and you just not to support/maintain that loan whilst still owing money, the loan organisational will take and impound your car, and if you chose not to action it whilst impounded you forfeit ownership and it's sold on you.
Buy a TV/furniture on loan and choose not to support/maintain that loan, sheriffs will come and take those items and if you chose not to do something about it, then you forfeit ownership.

... we see many different examples in real-life of the conceptual idea around change of ownership if you chose not to to support/maintain your responsibilities and abandon it without further action.

 

[Mouth]

The fact that you want an automatic shift in license without any further input from an author after submitting a resource here is already them giving up something of their own.

No, I didn't say that. I already acknowledged there would have to be some process change to the existing housekeeping functionality if the conceptual idea was proceeded to implementation.

 

[Martok]

I doubt very much that XenForo would entertain looking at the changing licence idea for abandoned add-ons. I don't think legally they can do this for an add-on they don't own and it opens them up to potential legal challenges from authors. Even if they did attempt this, the result is that many authors may simply stop putting their add-ons in the Resources section and either not make them available at all or put them on a 3rd party site (and you can pretty much guarantee that someone will set up a 3rd party site if this came into force and then XenForo would have no control over add-ons at all). Besides, several existing authors already host their add-ons on their own sites so these couldn't be made GPL as XenForo don't have access to the add-ons.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Your analogy is leaving physical property on someone else property. Typically when the threat of losing so.ething exists you at least attempt to remove it.

Now that analogy does not work for intellectual property hosted on the internet. The part that does is trying to remove everything when you are ready to abandon it if you can and that's not something you wish to achieve but anyone being forced into it might consider.

 

[Mouth]

I don't think legally they can do this for an add-on they don't own and it opens them up to potential legal challenges from authors.

Agreed, that's why the idea is that it would likely start with XF 2.0 compatible add-ons and RM submitters would be agreeing to the new terms when uploading/updating new XF 2.0 compatible add-ons.

Even if they did attempt this, the result is that many authors may simply stop putting their add-ons in the Resources section and either not make them available at all or put them on a 3rd party site (and you can pretty much guarantee that someone will set up a 3rd party site if this came into force and then XenForo would have no control over add-ons at all). Besides, several existing authors already host their add-ons on their own sites so these couldn't be made GPL as XenForo don't have access to the add-ons.

The is already occurring and already the case. I don't think GPL will sway this action in either case. I believe XF Ltd's upping the ante on the housekeeping process is an attempt to already try and deal/stem this occurring. Instead I believe they should be making sure that RM is properly fit-for-purpose for dev's and end-users. A change in concept with GPL might enforce that fit-for-purpose requirement. With many dev's now only using RM as a listing/index, with all sales and support on their own site or 3rd party sites, it's a current issue anyway IMHO.

 

[RobParker]

I think this is where this conversation is falling down. While technically it might be a tiny change, legally it's huge. Re-assigning IP to a company based on a criteria that they themselves set is a huge mine field of problems.

 

[Mouth]

While technically it might be a tiny change, legally it's huge. Re-assigning IP to a company based on a criteria that they themselves set is a huge mine field of problems.

This concept is re-assigning IP to the public domain, not to a company. A small, but very important, distinction.
I don't disagree, license transfer and rescinding it is a minefield presently too. There is regular legal discussions on whether an author that released software under GPL, can later rescind it and (re)claim proprietary ownership and take legal action against anyone not adhering to the new proprietary license. So far, AFAIK, it's untested in courts and thus without precedent.

Sometimes because something is challenging or difficult, doesn't make it unworthy in contemplating and considering, and seeking legal guidance on where one would stand. There's no been an XF Ltd official participate in this discussion (unless I missed it, but it wasn't necessarily created to seek official participation but community thoughts), so they may be quite interested in the hypothesis, or completely contemptuously ignoring

 

[RobParker]

That's like Apple having a term in their agreement that if a music house don't produce their old songs in a compatible format for a new version of iTunes, Apple can then release copyright of that song into the public domain.

I know these are ridiculous examples but hopefully one will get through and make you realise how bad an idea this is.

 

[Martok]

There is little, if no benefit to XenForo for taking on this potential challenge and there are plenty of risks. These include authors stopping putting their add-ons in the Resources section and potential legal action (which I doubt XenForo would like to see again). All for the 'benefit' of possibly a 3rd party author taking over another 3rd party author's add-on(s) and actually wanting to re-use their code.

I can see where the legal issues could come. Someone disappears for legitimate reasons (car crash and they are severely injured in hospital for a period of time; living in a location where there's a natural disaster and electricity and other services are out of action for a period of time). The author eventually returns to find that their add-ons have been made GPL and someone else has taken them over. This was never their intention, they never wanted this and it couldn't be helped, so they decide to sue XenForo.

Yes, the two scenarios are unlikely but they are quite possible (and I'm sure there are other situations where an author may disappear for a period of time).

Really, it's probably in XenForo's best financial interests to steer clear of this altogether and just continue with their current practice of marking add-ons as unmaintained and removing them. If the author returns, the add-ons can easily be restored and there's no legal implications with their actions. Plus of course it won't scare off authors from publishing in the Resources section in the first place.

 

[RichardKYA]

Sounds like someone has abandonment issues lol

I jest.

While I can understand that you want some sort of protection/guarantee to ensure the longevity of your site, I don't think requesting that devs give up their rights to their work is the way to go. To me, it's pretty ludicrous and seems to be demanding way too much for your money.

I think if you're that worried about add-on updates, support, etc, then you'd be better off paying for custom work where you can decide everything and own the rights to it all and that way, if one dev lets you down, you can pay for another to take over/maintain it. It might cost you more money, but like the ol' saying goes...."you get what you pay for". If you're paying $5-$60 for a license to use the code "as is", then that's exactly what you get. You can't expect a lifetime guarantee of updates, support and a possible exchange of rights to all be included for $5-$60.

I've created an add-on that I think a lot of people will find useful, but there's quite a few threads similar to this one, that just put me off from selling it on here. I think a lot of people expect too much for their money. In my mind, if you're paying for a license to use something, then that's exactly what you have, you don't own it, the creator or the rights to it. You certainly don't have the right to be telling/demanding/requesting what they do with their work if they decide that they no longer have any interest in maintaining it.

While considering selling my add-on here, I have written a product description that includes important information, I think I might need to add this to it...

"If I create it, I own it. If I leave it unmaintained, I own it. If I abandon it, I still own it."

lol

 

[Robust]

XF Ltd are already doing that. They are telling dev's if they don't visit the XF community and/or don't support their add-on within the XF community, then housekeeping will take over and either remove their add-on or mark it unmaintained. If the dev has decided not to engage, and abandon their add-on rather than remove/un-maintain it themselves before the housekeeping process does it, then I see very little difference in stipulating a licensing change in the case of abandoned add-ons actioned by housekeeping.
Of course, some small modification/clarity to the housekeeping processes and perhaps prior prompting/reminder email to the dev might be needed to support this - but it's a compceptual idea, not a detailed implementation plan/schedule.

They have acceptable rules to manage a place to LIST add-ons. You're suggesting a business for profit have the ability to control the products of another business for profit. There's a difference between site rules and whatever you call this.

I think I'm going to stop replying. It's evident this won't happen and the posts you make are a little disturbing/worrying.

 

[Biker]

GPL style licensing would never work as it requires any code attached to such a license to be totally open source. If you include it in a closed source program, the licensing terms are written in such a way that the proprietary program is now open source. This is why most developers are getting away from GPL type licensing and going with what amounts to Apache style licensing. This gives a tremendous amount of clout to the developer and while the program may still be free, it doesn't tie the developer's hands with idiotic licensing requirements making his work free to the world with the only caveat being acknowledgment given to the author when his work is used by someone else.

Forcing a developer to convert his licensing schema to GPL will never happen. The second something like that was put into place, the RM would become an immediate ghost town with every single developer yanking their products. In addition, there'd most likely be a huge exodus of Admins who quit using XF. I'd be one of them if XF ever seriously decided to force GPL style licensing on developers. And then the real fun begins with the first of the lawsuits.

 

[Xon]

In princible, I don't mind that "abandoned" software being licenced as some open source software licence, I would object to things licenced MIT Licenced or BSD claused being re-licenced as a less-free licence like GPL.

 

[EQnoble]

Again I am not arguing for this or against this as it does not effect me in the least, I have my own ideas of how to solve this issue and it is in a totally different ballpark than this thread and it also would require more staff or at least 6 people willing to sign a very detailed contract which I will skip the details of for you but it would make the system and process safe and equitable for everyone in a neutral way.

However, the whole thing as was suggested...it can only work if it is on a per item opt in basis and will only be fair if the users pick up the bill on the addon fees associated with the license change system and not the devs.


Logic: everyone needs to give to get something out of this or it is BS.

Users: get piece of mind and give extra dollars

Devs: get a free way to show they are concerned about their clients if they are willing to give ownership away should they decide to close up shop or drop support/updates for a resource

XF: get happy/satisfied customers and has to give time to support the additional moderation/administration caused by this system.
​

If a user buys into something that isn't marked as something like "License Protected" and support is dropped than they can't complain (though I am sure many devs will feel like they are being pressured into that box or risking being blacklisted by not signing on to it).



I saw the response and couldn't resist replying again to this but I will refrain from posting here again as anything I have to say now has more to do with my own solution to this and I am only allowed to write 10000 characters in a post so I bow out here and let everyone else do their thing whilst I leisurely meander around in my own thoughts.

 

[we_are_borg]

Well now an error is made by Xenforo all addons are marked unmaintained and become GPL. You cant turn it back thats a big issue and mistakes will happen.

 

[tyteen4a03]

No.

Aside from the arguments many have made, I don't see this holding up in court either. Your IP remains your IP, and a clause in the T&C stating that your rights are stripped of sounds like unlawful contractual terms to me. (IANAL, of course)

Control of the license needs to always reside with the content creator.

I can quickly see developers abandoning XF if this is implemented because frankly, I don't want XF controlling the license of my work. It's my work, not XF's. It's a matter of principle.