Author Topic: License question  (Read 4596 times)

Offline pepenet

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License question
« on: June 08, 2007, 01:21:39 PM »
I have a question about GPL License, and RC.

I work in a company called psico fxp that provides free forum "hosting".
Now mi boss wants to provide Free Webmail to our visitors (like hotmail or gmail), and payed ones to get more GB or "No Ads".
My boss wants to take a free webmail (openwebmail, squirrelmai or RC) and make modification to adjust to our lookandfeel login system and to add advertising changes.
   
I know the legal aspects for distribution of GPL software, but in a hosted service, I do not know.

Beyond eticals thoughts, is my work, so I want to know if "To provide" or "to sell" accounts (not the software itself) is legal or ilegal.

Thanks in advance.

ps:I swear, that in spite of my boss, I will do the best that can i do to provide fixes and addons to the selected webmail project.
 :-[

Offline FatJonny

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Re: License question
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2007, 01:31:51 PM »
My uneducated guess would be that there are no problems in charging a fee for members of the public to use your webmail service, whether its Roundcube thats used as the webmail client or not. You are not charging for the software but instead charging for the email service in terms of server space and bandwidth. That is what the customer is paying you for.

So I'd say go ahead.... although whether you can convince anybody to pay for an email service is another question ;)

Offline bpat1434

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Re: License question
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2007, 01:11:43 PM »
If you want to use Roundcube (or offer it as an option) for the interface of your IMAP server, that's fine. What the GPL states is that you can't profit from selling the code as-is. So since it seems you're selling an email service (not the roundcube software) then you should be fine.

I would however run this proposal past Thomas. You can email him at roundcube(at)gmail(dot)com
 
  

Offline pepenet

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Re: License question
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2007, 07:51:37 PM »
Many thanks to everyone!.


Peter.

ps: A frend of my is making a changes in the mail parsing (when you see a email), fixing the amount of memory that consume with big mails (or mails with attach). O hope that he release it soon, i will propose post the patches in this forum, bye!

Offline bpat1434

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Re: License question
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2007, 09:48:54 PM »
If he gets it working, tell him not only to submit it here (because we're cool like that) but also to submit it to dev(at)lists(dot)roundcube(dot)net so that the devs will see it guaranteed.