I have a question, I tried reading through the legal stuff but im not that savvy with the legal side of things.
Is it illegal for someone to claim they created the code for a mybb powered forum? Say they forum has ' Powered by (name) forum ' in the footer that would essentially mean the forums owner is claiming to have created it wouldn't it?
Really? that is pretty olive up tbh.
I would say yes it is illegal because you never made the forum system and you never coded it.
I think Solidus said yes for the open source software because it is open source and is allowed to be edited by anyone and as far as i know it is allowed to be redistributed after your editing to the software.
(2011-07-28, 01:13 AM)Shex Wrote: [ -> ]Really? that is pretty olive up tbh.
MyBB is open source. If I wanted to take MyBB core and start my own forum software with my own branding I could.
That's the freedom of open source software. No one essentially 'owns' it.
I find that pretty screwed up that people actually do that, it's the ultimate slap in the face for any developer/designer to have their well earned copyright removed and replaced by thoughtless forum owners putting their stupid 'Powered by StolenBoards' crap in the footer.
(2011-07-28, 01:23 AM)Shex Wrote: [ -> ]I find that pretty screwed up that people actually do that, it's the ultimate slap in the face for any developer/designer to have their well earned copyright removed and replaced by thoughtless forum owners.
The MyBB team decided to choose that license.
MyBB was originally meant to be commercial software. However, in 2003, he-who-got-his-head-shaved (also known as Chris Boulton) reversed the plans and vowed to make MyBB a free product (which it still is today).
Provided you retained the source code copyrights then you would not be breaching the licence, however you would not receive support here and some people might consider it misleading.
If you were to remove the source code copyrights and/or redistribute the code under another licence then you would be breaching the GPL licence and the law with respect to copyright.
(2011-07-28, 01:23 AM)Shex Wrote: [ -> ]I find that pretty screwed up that people actually do that, it's the ultimate slap in the face for any developer/designer to have their well earned copyright removed and replaced by thoughtless forum owners putting their stupid 'Powered by StolenBoards' crap in the footer.
While in that context this freedom to change the footer credit seems absurd, there are other situations where it would be appropriate. For example if someone were to develop and maintain an alternate distribution of MyBB, perhaps with alterations to suit a particular niche then I think it would be appropriate. If anything it would be beneficial to avoid people coming here asking for support for a distribution we don't support. Think about Ubuntu, they brand that as Ubuntu even though it is based on Debian, this is an example of where the nature of the GPL licence in this respect can be used for perfectly legitimate purposes, and indeed why it was written that way to begin with.