Understanding liferay6 license information

[11年前 に Sunil K によって更新されました。]

Hello,

I have downloaded liferay6.1 CE edition and also downloaded administrator guide.

As per the administration guide, liferay CE edition is offered for free under the Lesser GNU public license, an open source license.

I have following question,
1) Can I extend/customize existing portlet in liferay portal, can I sell this customized liferay portal as product to the client. If Yes, then is there any limitation of selling price?
2) Can I extend/customize existing few portlets and add few more portlet into liferay portal, Can I sell this product?
3) I can use liferay portal as platform, added few themes and layouts and portlets (which might use liferay API e.g User add/update APIs). So Can I sell this as my own product to client.

[11年前 に David H Nebinger によって更新されました。]

1. no
2. no
3. no

Seriously, to understand your privileges under the LGPL, you should consult a lawyer. Unless a lawyer tells you it is okay, you should assume the answer is "no".

[11年前 に Samuel Kong によって更新されました。]

I would say the answer depends. It depends on how you extend/customize Liferay, how you distribute your program, and probably a few other things. As David said, it's probably best to consult a lawyer.

[11年前 に Hitoshi Ozawa によって更新されました。]

I would say the answer depends. It depends on how you extend/customize Liferay, how you distribute your program, and probably a few other things. As David said, it's probably best to consult a lawyer.

It's probably better to first read the LGPL and GPL licenses.

Commercial open source projects are dependent of developers developing and contributing their source code back to the community. In this regard, LGPL and GPL are one of the best license available because developers are able to develop/distribute/sell using what's available without any cost while the community benefits from being able to receive the developed code. It's the fundamental give and take scenerio which the open source project principle is based on.

Furthermore, Marketplace is what question 3 is all about! Developers are able to develop their portlets/themes and sell them at the Marketplace. Liferay 6.1.1 GA2 even made the process of buying and installing plugins from the Marketplace easier.

If you don't want to distribute your source code, don't go to a lawyer to try to find a way to go around the license. Instead, just purchase an OEM license from Liferay.com. Liferay.com do sell OEM licenses to those who want to distribute (doesn't matter whether there is any monetary exchange or not) just the executables without the source code. You'll be helping Liferay.com finance development of better software instead of wasting money and time on a lawyer.

Note here, Samuel is with Liferay.com and I'm just a community member. Samuel probably was too polite to say all this because he's with Liferay.com.

[11年前 に Sunil K によって更新されました。]

Thanks All

[11年前 に Hitoshi Ozawa によって更新されました。]

Additional note is that if you create your own portlet, you're not bound to use LGPL and can distribute it with any license you wish to use.

[11年前 に Hitoshi Ozawa によって更新されました。]

1) Can I extend/customize existing portlet in liferay portal, can I sell this customized liferay portal as product to the client. If Yes, then is there any limitation of selling price?
2) Can I extend/customize existing few portlets and add few more portlet into liferay portal, Can I sell this product?
3) I can use liferay portal as platform, added few themes and layouts and portlets (which might use liferay API e.g User add/update APIs). So Can I sell this as my own product to client.

Even if you modify liferay's source code, it's just under GPL. GPL is not to prevent developers from selling software, it just put a condition that if you modify it and pass it to another party, you have to provide all the source code which you've modified.
So, to answer you question, it
1) Yes. Under GPL terms. There's no restriction on selling price but you can't put restriction on customers from reselling the software at lower price either.
2) Yes. Under GPL terms.
3) Yes. GPL does not impose limitation on license to plugins which you've wholly created and selling unbundled with liferay.

Please read carefully the further conditions when distributing your version of liferay (such as not removing copyright).

You can check the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt) and read summary at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License)

Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version. The licensee is allowed to charge a fee for this service, or do this free of charge. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution. The FSF argues that free software should not place restrictions on commercial use,[34] and the GPL explicitly states that GPL works may be sold at any price.

BTW, we do offer consulting service for open source legal licensing as well as service to analyze source code and used library to detect various licenses included.