Theme about copyrights to discuss

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:30 am

Here we are. Posting this topic here, since we didn't get answer nor from FB nor from GNU/GPL team more other than the month.

Basis: post-nuke, cpg-nuke and etc did use php-nuke as the basis. It include parts of modules and other parts of code. But they all didn't left any copyrights.
The questions is - Is this legal or not have no answer for us right now, because we didn't pay attention to these system enough detailed to determinate answer.

Our question:
"Web site engine's code is Copyright © 2002 by PHP-Nuke."
This line. For us right now it means, that if we'll rewrite engine, just engine, completely, then we have right to delete this line. It's simple, since engine will not contains any part of code, even point, there are no reason to leave this line.

In same time, we will have to leave (of course) any and all copyrights of php-nuke in modules/pages which didn't rewriten by our hands.

We will not refer to cpg-nuke and so on, because we can take responsibility for own actions and minds instead moving responsibility to other systems owners.

So, if anyone see any reason why our position could be wrong - argue please, and argue with exact quotes from GNU/GPL.

The reason: we are going to release edogsCMS based on php-nuke 7.3 and fully compatible with it. We want to have right to delete copyrights which we mentioned higher, and this is why we are going to rewrite engine of php-nuke. Currently we feel that we are 100% right.
Main idea of edogsCMS is to make CMS with a) less visible copyrights b) much more fast core c) in spite of many php-nuke forks/clones, we are going to keep full compatibility with php-nuke 7.3 In addition and advantage we will allow to use with this CMS our own modules, which were paid before. So the question about legality issue are very important for us.

Elite Nuker Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 278

Does anyone really listen to the GNU licence anymore?

and i hope this does stir an argument.

because the amount of sites i see nowadays that have blatantly removed all copyright of PHP-Nuke is mind boggling, and no action ever seems to be taken towards anyone.

has anyone ever been taken to court for removing a copyright?

answer anoymously if you wish.. but I for one would love to know.

Shane.

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:03 pm

bronteland wrote:

Does anyone really listen to the GNU licence anymore?

Yes. We do.
Do you really listen our question in this topic? If so, then could you explain why you wrote here? Your post definitely not in right topic.

We ask exact question, to discuss exact points of different views to exact changes and exact reasons for removing copyrights or/and keeping them in appropriate place.

We have asked to argue with links.

Please. Guys. Don't make flood in this topic. If you have nothing to say and argue, keep silence please. Have respect.

Elite Nuker Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 278

Quote:

If so, then could you explain why you wrote here? Your post definitely not in right topic.

I will explain why i wrote here..

my point edogs is this.. i personally feel that too many people abuse the GNU licence..

please forgive me if you misunderstood my post.. i did not mean you.

I agree with you 100% that the rights to remove copyright should be aquired first but so many nuke sites are removing it without asking nowadays that it is truly getting out out of hand.

Quote:

you have nothing to say and argue, keep silence

and on that too agreed.. maybe you misunderstand my English? I am with you on this, and would like to know what others have to say.

Elite Nuker Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 220

From what I understand about the GNU/GPL license is that the credits must remain in the source code (eg. PHP, C, etc, files). With any subsequent adding, deleting, etc of code the author can add their copyright in addition to the original source. The original source (author) credits must remain in the source code regardless.

Other than that, based on what I've read there are no legal repercussions for someone removing the copyrights in the resulting HTML.

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:30 am

bronteland wrote:

Quote:

you have nothing to say and argue, keep silence

and on that too agreed.. maybe you misunderstand my English? I am with you on this, and would like to know what others have to say.

Probably. Sorry for misunderstanding. We just hoped to hear argues to or against our point of view. But anyways we grateful for support. Sorry again, our english is not good, though we try:-).

MGCJerry wrote:

From what I understand about the GNU/GPL license is that the credits must remain in the source code (eg. PHP, C, etc, files). With any subsequent adding, deleting, etc of code the author can add their copyright in addition to the original source. The original source (author) credits must remain in the source code regardless.

Yes. We totally agree with this. But, if you read our post carefully, we didn't mean adding, deleting and etc of source code.
We mean rewriting core code completely from scratch. In result will be no even point from php-nuke core code/engine. So there are no reason to leave copyrights in source code, since it will be our code completely and 100%.
BUT the question about visible copyrights. They means "copyrights engine". We think if "engine" will be our, then we can delete php-nuke copyrights about engine, only engine and nothing more. But since the php-nuke it's complex system, we want to have some confirmation from 3rd party about it, or at least didn't get argues agains it.

We will keep compatibility with modules, and we will (of course) leave copyrights unchanged in any module/block/admin sections and etc.

Sergeant Joined: Oct 14, 2003 Posts: 115

Fair enough about the GNU/GPL license. I keep all copyrights visible on my site because the author of the work has put so much effort into making the block, module etc. that it's only fair to display their name under their work.

I mean, how much bandwidth is displaying a few copyrights going to take up? Next to nothing.

As for recoding the Nuke engine, i would have thought that you could place your own copyrights on the interface end of things, but you would need to keep the original copyrights if not for any practical reason, but out of respect for the people who have worked on it.

If you look at it this way edogs, at the end of the day you are contributing to a legacy, adding your name to the annals of nuke history by trying an alternate method to deliver a refined CMS system.

Sergeant Joined: Jul 18, 2005 Posts: 133

to be honest

why not just make your own CMS and have the rights yourself on it

if your going to recode the whole core engine just make your own CMS and just code an alternative method of compliance to work nuke modules. keeping database heirarchy and naming conventions similar if not the same.

this will remove any doubt

then you can release edogsCMS with no requirement of copyright on it Very Happy

therefore no more arguements can take place.

as well as that you would have to recode the admin section, and how modules are done in order to say the system is truly your design

if you start from scratch done go under the header of CMS and aim for NUKE compliance. phpnuke.org could even manage a compliance system on their site for nuke compliance where you can display a PHPNUKE.org banner on your CMS saying its 100% nuke compliant

oh wait that the same thing as leaving the copyright there

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 6:32 am

dionsis wrote:

why not just make your own CMS and have the rights yourself on it

Simple. We want bring something to Nukers - to make a better nuke, not just own "another CMS" which is not related to php-nuke.

dionsis wrote:

if your going to recode the whole core engine just make your own CMS and just code an alternative method of compliance to work nuke modules. keeping database heirarchy and naming conventions similar if not the same.

It's just around used terms.
If someone will announce something 100% compatible... the someone will have to keep database hierarchy and naming of variables SAME, otherwise it will not be compatible.
From such positions, we don't see the differenct between "writing from scratch" and "rewriting part by part", because result will be the same.

Quote:

then you can release edogsCMS with no requirement of copyright on it Very Happy

therefore no more arguements can take place.

If we would see "php-nuke copyright" the question wouldn't take a place... but we see "php-nuke engine copyright" that makes things much more simple from our point of view... and we still don't see opposite arguments. Basically it makes us feel that we are quite right. Not WHOLE code of php-nuke copyright protected. Admin sections is not copyrighted with visible copyrights for example.

BTW, the question about php-nuke copyright rules and policy and according to actions of FB we can see that there are no copyrights of slashdot inside (part of code in core), there are no copyrights of phpbb inside (php-nuke db class completely from phpbb), so this means for us that creator of php-nuke have rules about copyrights which allow copyrights removal in some cases, even if code is not completely rewriten.

Quote:

as well as that you would have to recode the admin section, and how modules are done in order to say the system is truly your design

Hm. It seems you didn't read the our first post completely. We don't want to rewrite modules. Yes, we are going to create one or couple.
But it's not in our intentions to remove copyrights from old modules. It's quite cute, and there are no reason to take care about it. The only thing to "bother" - is "engine" copyrights in footer. And this is the thing we going to beat legally:-)

Quote:

if you start from scratch done go under the header of CMS and aim for NUKE compliance. phpnuke.org could even manage a compliance system on their site for nuke compliance where you can display a PHPNUKE.org banner on your CMS saying its 100% nuke compliant

We would never believe that someone would be agree with something like this:-)
Who hell needs to advertise CMS 100% compatible and better than his own? Smile

Quote:

oh wait that the same thing as leaving the copyright there

Not the same thing at all.
Any cms which contains part of php-nuke engine can contain these copyrights. It can be completely incompatible... and have such copyright line. So in this case it means nothing.