Question on LGPL License

Question

Hi, I'm having problems in interpreting the license of Typolight (A CMS released under LGPL license).

The project owner has made it mandatory to print a comment in the homepage of the frontend of the site which mentions the use of Typolight CMS - http://www.typolight.org/forum/topic/8283.html

Can anyone please throw some light on this?

AFAIK, even the GPL doesn't force you to print that kind of message in the frontend (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal). Only a credit in the source files is required (php files).

I'm looking to create a work derived from this script, but adding a copyright notice like this in the frontend homepage won't be possible for me.

Answer 1

Based on the blog entry at the link you provided, it sounds like people have been removing the copyright notice from the software before using it, so the author has now written the software in such a way that it forces the copyright notice into the home page.

Generally speaking, if a software user can't respect the wishes of the developer, they should look elsewhere for their software.

Answer 2

The creator of the original work is allowed to add their own provisions to the licensing terms. Using the GPL doesn't mean that you lose control over your own code. For instance, you can issue commercial licenses (provided all contributors have agreed).

As a consumer in a free market it is your right to choose to use someone's software. But if you choose to use it then you need to abide by all of the terms set forth by the copyright owner.

Answer 3

From the thread linked by you:

If you have created custom page layouts (templates) with the invisible copyright notice, your are officially allowed to remove it after you have updated to version 2.6.2, so the notice does not appear twice in the page source.

Now I am not sure if "it" refers to the invisible o the visible copyright - maybe you should ask for clarification. Intention of the post seems "the visible one" - i.e. forcing people to comply with the licence, which seems ok for you.

Answer 4

IANAL, but it seems that the creators of Typolight want to use the (L)GPL license (to promote their product) but they do not live in the spirit of free software. It makes no fscking sense to say "Users of the free (LGPL) version must include a copyright notice but users of the paid-for version don't have to". Because this means that either the copyright notice is not really necessary, but a way to force people to use the commercial version; or alternatively, it means that the commercial version is not copyrighted.