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HomeHomeGetting StartedGetting StartedNew to DNN Plat...New to DNN Plat...Various license questionsVarious license questions
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6/22/2010 12:36 PM
 
Greetings, 

We are considering various CMS options and in that regard I have the following questions:

Regarding a PRO License

-          If we buy a PRO license is it then covered by a proprietary license or an open source license? If it is a proprietary license what are the license terms?

-          If we buy a PRO license do we then get access to the source code for the extra stuff added compared to the Community editions (viewable code)?

-          Can we buy support services for the community edition? From your price table it seems that support is only available for the PRO licenses.

-          Are you offering any individual extra modules/add-ons in addition to those features bundled into the Pro licenses? And if yes, are these extra modules offered as open source or proprietary licenses and do we get access to the source code for them if we buy them (viewable code)?

-          I assume we can start out with the community edition and later easily upgrade to the PRO edition. But can we also easily downgrade from the PRO edition to the community edition if we decide?

 

Questions from potential community developer:

-          Who owns the copyright to the core community code?

-          If we contribute code to the project who will then have the copyright to that code? Will your company be able to use our code contributions in your commercial PRO licenses?

-          Do we need to sign a contributor agreement if we contribute code?

-          Is the community license a permissive or reciprocal license?

-          If we develop an add-on can we then promote and sell this add-on on a commercial basis with a proprietary license, or do we have to contribute the code back to the open source project? Would proprietary commercial add-ons work with the Community edition or only with the PRO editions?


Kind regards,

Mark Johnston
 
New Post
6/22/2010 2:37 PM
 
Alright, remember I'm not a lawyer by any means, but here's my understanding of things.
Some are these are covered in the Edition Comparison http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Products/Ed...

I'll try to answer your questions as I can, in order

DNN PE does have a separate license from DNN CE, for more details on the license itself you can reach out to sales@dotnetnuke.com

DNN PE does not come with the source code for the PE features, but the standard DNN source code applies to the framework itself. With the Elite or Elite Premier editions you get access to the PE extensions source code.

At this time you cannot buy support services without purchasing a PE license

The PE features are all provided though the use of additional extensions, modules, providers, etc, and are licensed separately from the standard DNN license.

CE to PE is very easy and straightforward. PE to CE I believe is possible, but not as easily as going the other way.

DotNetNuke Corp owns the license to the core source code

Code that is contributed goes through a contribution process that assigns the rights to that code to DNN Corp for inclusion in the CE product, because CE is the basis for PE it is possible that contributed code may be utilized in the PE version as well.

I believe there is still a contributor agreement in place, but some submissions are possible without an agreement through the use of features of Codeplex.com

The CE license is an MIT license, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License which is permissive

Extensions for DNN can be developed, marketed, and managed with whatever software license the developer chooses. If you re-use code from the CE version of DNN however you must retain the copyright statement for that code within your inclusion, but the MIT license doesn't require that you redistribute under the same license.

Proprietary addons can be developer for both CE or PE or both. Generally anything that works in CE will work in PE, and likely vice versa.

Chris Hammond
Former DNN Corp Employee, MVP, Core Team Member, Trustee
Christoc.com Software Solutions DotNetNuke Module Development, Upgrades and consulting.
dnnCHAT.com a chat room for DotNetNuke discussions
 
New Post
6/22/2010 3:32 PM
 
In addition to Chris' statements:
- you may easily by CE support from any of the DNN professionals in the community, this includes a number of Core Team members, who offer their services
- you may buy extensions and customizations from a number of 3rd party developers in the community. I admit that there are different levels of quality though
- there are experienced professionals in the community, who may help with upgrades and downgrading from PE to CE as well
- within the CLA for code contributions you pass over all rights to DotNetNuke Corp without limitation (and get in return the grant to use it yourself)
- for your own extensions, you are free to specify the licence and terms of use according to your needs - free/commercial, with or without source code etc.

Cheers from Germany,
Sebastian Leupold

dnnWerk - The DotNetNuke Experts   German Spoken DotNetNuke User Group

Speed up your DNN Websites with TurboDNN
 
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6/23/2010 5:25 AM
 
Thank you for the great answers - I have a few follow-up questions (if you don't mind):

- As I understand it, Elite editions give access to the code behind the PE features, but I assume we can only view the code i.e. we cannot use it on an open source basis?

- I understand that if we contribute code then we assign copyrights to DNN Corporation, allowing DNN Corp to use the code in the PE. But do we also retain copyright to the code that we contribute, so that we are free to use it in parallel?

Thanks!
 
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6/23/2010 5:27 AM
 
Forgot one question (sorry there are several people besides me in the process): If we buy a PRO edition I understand that the support subscription is mandatory. What happens if we later do not want to have and pay for support. Will we then be forced to downgrade to the Community edition and uninstall the extra features included in the PRO edition? Will the PRO license automatically expire if we don’t renew our support subscription? Thanks
 
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HomeHomeGetting StartedGetting StartedNew to DNN Plat...New to DNN Plat...Various license questionsVarious license questions


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