encrypted commercial mods

If someone is selling encrypted commercial mods that directly interact with zen cart core code, is that a violation of GPL? Would the ZC copyright holders be interested in knowing more about a company doing this? Or is it pointless to pursue? I would happily pay for one of their modules but it's encrypted and I cannot make any custom alterations to suit my needs and that bothers me. They are concerned about piracy, but I have bought a number of commercial mods that are not encrypted and I don't think the authors experience excessive pirating. More importantly, it annoys me that they are profiting from open source code but releasing theirs as encrypted closed source code. If ZC was the same way then they wouldn't be able to write their modules, would they? Unless they paid for code access.....:no::wacko::no::censored:

Anyway, if the ZC copyright holders want more info please PM me.

So you suggest that since Zen Cart is open source any develop that develop a custom module must make it available to everyone so you can get it for Free?

Encryption is the only way you won't be able to take their work and use it on multiple websites or even sell it. I don't see any violation to open source rules as they are not taking pre-existing modules and selling them which will be wrong on multi-level.

There are plenty of good modules out there that do things Zen Cart doesn't do out of the box which are encrypted I don't see anything wrong with that and there shouldn't be. It isn't like they are charging arm and leg for them. Everyone deserves to get paid for their work, if you want to use their modules you should pay up for their work.

Ummm.... no. I never said anything about getting it for free. Reread my post....:rolleyes: Commercial modules, which means you pay for them. I have bought plenty of commercial modules and they have all been open source/open code so I could go in and make changes to suit my particular needs. I think that encrypting GPL code is against the GPL. If a commercial module interacts with any core zen cart code it is automatically GPL regardless of any other licensing it may have. That is my question, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with whether a module is sold for money or given away, and I never mentioned that they should just be given away. Mkay?

Perhaps other members that sell their commercial modules will chip in here, but from my discussions with people that I have bought commercial mods from it seems that pirating/giving it away free somewhere is not too much of an issue.

Personally, I would never give away commercial scripts, to me it's morally/ethically wrong. But I do very often need to tweak the code and with encrypted code that is impossible unless you get the un-encrypter/cracker. Plus it goes against the grain of open source to encrypt....

Just to clarify here.

If 3rd party code uses any functions/classes/code from Zen Cart (this includes just calling the function/class) then that code automatically becomes GPL licensed and subject to strictures of the GPL v2 license.

This does not prohibit someone from distributing the code in encrypted form, however they then must make arrangements for the human readable source code to be made available to any one who get the encrypted version.

The GPL license DOES NOT prohibit making a commercial gain (whether monetary or otherwise) from GPL licensed code.

lankeeyankee:

Ummm.... no. I never said anything about getting it for free. Reread my post....:rolleyes: Commercial modules, which means you pay for them. I have bought plenty of commercial modules and they have all been open source/open code so I could go in and make changes to suit my particular needs. I think that encrypting GPL code is against the GPL. If a commercial module interacts with any core zen cart code it is automatically GPL regardless of any other licensing it may have. That is my question, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with whether a module is sold for money or given away, and I never mentioned that they should just be given away. Mkay?

Perhaps other members that sell their commercial modules will chip in here, but from my discussions with people that I have bought commercial mods from it seems that pirating/giving it away free somewhere is not too much of an issue.

Personally, I would never give away commercial scripts, to me it's morally/ethically wrong. But I do very often need to tweak the code and with encrypted code that is impossible unless you get the un-encrypter/cracker. Plus it goes against the grain of open source to encrypt....
You can always hire the developer to do the customization. Plus most encrypted modules are backend modules that don't need tweaking because they have so many checks to configure anything you need from within the module.

I am paying for my developer to recreate a sitemap encrypted module because I need some things changed in the logic which is fine because it is part of running a business.

I started the same subject some time ago and the thread is located just a few lines below this one... :smile:

Anyway, the conclusion was that ANY type of encryption is not allowed since GPL is copylefted and every plugin that in any way interacts with the core must me GPL.

This has nothing to do with paying for modules or developers or making the modules commercial. It's perfectly fine and legal to make commercial modules under GPL, but you're just not allowed to encrypt it.

However, the copyright owners would need to press charges and be ready to cover ALL expenses during trial, and there's no guarantee of success. So, in other words, the Zen Cart Team would need to "invest" their own money to run those who encrypt their modules out of business. And the question is - what would they gain? I guess we just have to get used to living in a corrupted world and do our best to stay away from the dark side. :wink2:

Or ... vote with your money ... don't buy an encrypted module. Tell them you won't buy it if it's encrypted. And why.

DrByte:

Or ... vote with your money ... don't buy an encrypted module. Tell them you won't buy it if it's encrypted. And why.

Exactly what I did in this case. Which is a shame since it would have been handy, it was an improved version of the dangling carrot module that I had done some improvement on but no longer have time to devote to working out the last few bugs and adding more features. Ah well, guess I will hire one of my go-to zc developers to fix up the free version and then I will release it to the community as an updated module.:smile: