Is this legal? (GPL Software / Licensing Issues)

gpl
JohnClaymore picture JohnClaymore · Dec 18, 2008 · Viewed 8k times · Source

I work for a software / design firm and I recently found out that our "in house" CMS is actually MODx that has been re-skinned by one of our designers. MODx is licensed under the GPL Ver 2.. I would like to know if it is ethical / legal to be selling this to clients.

We also offer another package that is actually ZenCart, is this legal as well?

I thought that software for commercial applications needed to be LGPL, are these applications being used "commercially"? We are certainly selling them to clients, while acting like they were developed in house...

I'd love to hear your thought / clarifications on this topic, I for one find it at least unethical. What do you think?

Answer

Bill Karwin picture Bill Karwin · Dec 18, 2008

Don't act on any legal advice you read on a forum like StackOverflow -- including mine. :-)

Here's a passage about GPL from Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

The terms and conditions of the GPL are available to anybody receiving a copy of the work that has a GPL applied to it ("the licensee"). Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version. The licensee is allowed to charge a fee for this service, or do this free of charge. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution. The FSF argues that free software should not place restrictions on commercial use, and the GPL explicitly states that GPL works may be sold at any price.

However, if your company is distributing the software under another license not compatible with GPL, then they're violating their license.

ZenCart is also licensed under GPL, so the same restrictions apply.

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