Smf is causing all sorts of havok in the open source world. It's licensing and popularity have brought it under the scrutiny of GPL projects. These projects are now saying no to Simple Machine Forum and the development of software that connects to it. SMF is also enforcing their interpretation of "free software". This may or may not bring about good changes for the end users of the respective software creators. The only winners may be those like phpBB and vBulliten who stand definatively on one side or the other when it comes to GPL or commercial licensing of forum software.

I love saying "I told you so". So "I told you so". The subject of this blog will soon be the subject of many more. SMF may ultimate have to take their software to a full commercial version. This was probably in the plans before as was hinted to by one commenter in a previous article.

Though it has now come to light in individual GPL projects this is not the first time SMF has bumped heads with GPL embodiments such as the OSI. In the last year or so many commercial software companies have gone over to a GPL and commercial combination of licensing. Companies such as SilverStripe and MovableType have seen the advantages of having a clear line drawn in licensing for their users. They have gone completely over to GPL or have made GPL software available. Apparently SMF is dead set on their course and seem to want to take down any associated projects by throwing their ill-fated gray licensing into the faces of the open source community.

Drupal
Joomla

Linus - I've said that over and over again. It's the "spirit of the GPLv2". It's what has made it such a great license, that lots of people (and companies) can use, is very fundamentally that it's fair.

The fact that the FSF sees *another* spirit to it is absolutely not a reason to say that I'm "confused". Quite frankly, apparently I'm _less_ confused than they are, since I saw the GPLv2 for what it was, and they did not - and as a result they felt they needed to extend upon it, because the license didn't actually match what they thought it would do.

I respect peoples freedoms too. I just disagree with the FSF on what that slippery word means.

I'm damn fed up with the FSF being the "protector of freedoms", and also feeling that they can define what those freedoms mean.

There are those that use SMF and may think that they do not enforce the license. We can see now that this is not true. It also brings about the question as to wether SMF would be as popular if developers started enforcing the GPL in the mods available for SMF. Forcing them to remove projects and code that are under the GPL and SMF breaks that license. There may be no instances of this, but then again who knows unless someone looks?

Tony - However, SMF's license goes too far for my comfort. It says that the product (and mods as well) cannot be redistributed without written permission from the developer. This means that if development on SMF ever stagnates and a team of fans wants to revive the product, they may be blocked. And the idea that I would have to get approval (in writing!) from them before I distribute my mods is silly. In fact, it's so silly I don't even think SMF enforces it -- they have a big mod database, and I think everything listed is just tacitly approved. But it sure gives them leverage if they decide they don't like a certain mod.

If Mambo had used the SMF license, Joomla wouldn't have been possible. If XFree86 had used the SMF license, X.org wouldn't have been possible.

Having said all that, I don't believe my concerns with SMF would be shared by most forum admins. For that matter, even many developers obviously don't mind, as they're writing mods for SMF. But I've seen development go bad before, so I prefer to use products that can be forked. It's like a safety net.

So what it really comes down to is this. SMF says that it wants to protect its users. But the reality is that they don't trust their users.

Happy Publishing!

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