[wp-hackers] Premium plugin protection

[Brian Layman]

On 12/12/2010 5:55 AM, Andrew Nacin wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 5:41 AM, Nicolas Kuttler<
> wp-hackers at nicolaskuttler.de>  wrote:
>> >  On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 03:38:23AM -0500, Brian Layman wrote:
>>> >>  I'm not totally convinced that their "it's gpl unless you have more
>>> >>  than 2 employees" licensing is GPL compliant.
>> >  Do you have a source for that? That would certainly be a reason for
>> >  removing the plugin from the repository.
> It may be, if it weren't wrong. WPeC is GPL, and so are the paid upgrades
> for it.
Andrew,

Actually my quote there implied that the licensing of their products was 
GPL, but I wasn't sure if it could be.  Now in fact I'm pretty sure it 
can't be GPL, though I'd be interested to find out otherwise as it 
violates my understanding of what GPL is.

Just to be clear and I really don't want to pick on Dan's plugin which 
is very cool and I support  it. It's just that this particular point 
never quite resolved itself in my mine.  You seem quite certain. So 
maybe you can clarify it for me...

On the Gold Cart plugin it says

    *Additional Information*

        * Non-profit organisations may use the Single Blogger License.

        * The Business License is for any organisation that has more
          than one staff member and individuals building e-commerce
          sites for clients that have more than one staff member -
          currently this is the only difference.



The page 
(http://getshopped.org/extend/premium-upgrades/premium-upgrades/gold-cart-plugin/) 
seems to indicate that you are buying the plugin and not it's 
distribution, or a support contract or connecting to services on their site.

Personally, I'm fine with that license and restriction. It just doesn't 
sound like GPL to my understanding of it..

"GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to 
share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free 
software for all its users."

You say this is GPL compliant?