• From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Topic: Change of license

I would like you to consider the option of releasing FrontAccounting under the AGPL license instead of the GPL. This license is more minded at hosted applications.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

http://glast.pi.infn.it/mech/Joomla/Componenti/civicrm/CRMDOC/AGPL%20vs.%20GPL.html

Currently I created a new very nice looking theme based on the theme of the new Group-Office which will make FrontAccounting very very good looking. However, it is not possible for me to release it, since FrontAccounting is not licensed under AGPL. AGPL is GPL compatible, but it doesn't work the other way around.

As I understand it, the AGPL requires you to make modifications available to others even though you only host the application for your customers. This is not explicitly required under the GPL license.

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

I can see the idea behind this. Under the traditional GPL, someone can change the software and/or use this modification as software on demand without letting the end users get a hand of the source. As I understand this is not possible under AGPL.
I will talk to my co-developer as well as our partners about this and get their opinion of the topic.

/Joe

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

Hello again Rasmus,
I have now talked to our partners and my co-developer and we have decided to change the License to AGPL instead of GPL. This change will be in effect when we ship the 2.1 release in a while.

/Joe

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

Great smile

  • alvin
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  • Registered: 05/20/2008
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Re: Change of license

My complements!!!

What about a Group-Office module?

AM

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."  - Aristotle.
  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

What do you mean by Group-Office module?

  • alvin
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Re: Change of license

rasmus_kristensen wrote:

What do you mean by Group-Office module?

a calendar, project management, e-mail, tasks, addressbook, file management, and more.

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."  - Aristotle.
  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

with our new theme. They look a lot a like smile So you can almost call it an application suite. Even more so when OpenID gets implemented in both applications...

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 11/21/2008
  • Posts: 44

Re: Change of license

We are a company that is providing Software as a service for our clients.
We are looking at using Front Accounting for our accounting service we offer.
However we are concerned about this new license you are going to.
Our clients have no interest in downloading the source code.
Software as a service is designed for those that don't want to mess with code.

So my question is, if you go to this new license, how does it affect what we have to offer our clients?

Do we just have to have a link to your website where they can download the code if they choose? or do we have to actually give them the code and have a lot of hassle and headache getting our clients a bunch of code that they don't want anyways.

I can appreciate your desire to keep the community alive and for us to contribute to your project, but that license you are thinking about going to does not make any sense to me, because the only people it hinders are those who have clients that don't want to do anything with the code anyways, so why even bother?

Anyways, I like what you guys are doing and I hope that you stay focused on producing an awesome ACCOUNTING software.  Don't get distracted with all the crm, project management, and erp junk that so many others are trying to do. It only will make your accounting portion weaker because you will use up valuable resources to do things that aren't your core focus.
Just focus on having the very best Accounting software and you will go far.

We will do what we can to contribute to your project, but if you start getting distracted in your roadmap or start requiring users to  have lots of hassle trying to figure out the licenses and how to offer software as a service, then I think you will be making a big mistake and lose a lot of momentum in your project.

Thanks for the great work so far.

Dave

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

Hi Dave,

I totally agree on the not implementing unnescessary features. However, the system is an ERP system, that also does accounting (doesn't matter)...

We are also providing software as a service to our clients. However, we are also doing development on the system and will be doing so a lot more in the future. What we are going to do is to give back whatever enhancements we make to FrontAccounting. For stupid little features that doesn't really make sense to anyone else, except a company with very specific requirements, we will upload the source to our own "forge". This will not be a place where we will accept any contributions. Those must still be handled by FrontAccounting (that by the way does an excellent job). It will only be to fullfill the license.

If companies are simply allowed to take the system, modify it and not give anything back, the business model of FrontAccounting as I see it, is very weak. You are either in or you are out. Otherwise you should use some kind of propritary license instead.

The new license will allow us to use work from a lot more different open source projects, which will be great for one of the most promising open source ERP projects.

Regards
Rasmus

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 11/21/2008
  • Posts: 44

Re: Change of license

Thanks for your message, Rasmus.

I agree that it is important for everyone to give and not just take.
My main concern is that we do not want to make it a hassle or a confusion for our clients using our services. Or a hassle for us to provide our accounting services.

We are not very familiar with this new license and so I think a simple explanation of what we must do with our clients on our website would be helpful.

Will it be ok to  simply put a link on our website to the frontaccounting website page where the code is able to be downloaded? Or are we required to do more than that with this new license?  I read the license and it is not completely clear to me as to what we can and can't do.

We do not plan on making changes to the frontaccounting code.
We are not programmers, we are accountants who plan on using the software to help our clients and we would like to support the frontaccounting community by offering advice on how to improve the system and possibly even financial support for programming features that we need.

Thanks,
Dave

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

Hello Dave,
Well Rasmus exdplained the new License type excellent.
As I see it, and if you do not change the source, there should be no problem linking back to us for downloading the source for those, I guess rare, situations where your clients want the source. Those clients will also have to accept the license.
I can guarantee you that we will focus on the accounting, and you can look forward to release 2.1, where we have a lot of new features.
You can go to the CVS repository at Sourceforge.net and look at the ChANGELOG.txt for the unstable release.
I can just give you a few new features:
Quick Entries in Bank Deposits / Payments and Journal Entry. Can also be used to make automatic codings in GL Journal Entries.
Recurring Invoices based on a single customer or a group (new in 2.1) of customers/branches.
Input of dimensions in documents. Paging of table lists. Tax Inquiry. POS. Print direct to printers. Hotkeys in many places. Option to have the links in lists be graphics. More fail-safe upgrading of database. Attachment of scanned document or other documents belonging to a posting and links to this feature after it has been posted. And much more.

/Joe

  • alvin
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  • Registered: 05/20/2008
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Re: Change of license

I just wanted to comment on Dave's statement

"Don't get distracted with all the crm, project management, and erp junk that so many others are trying to do. It only will make your accounting portion weaker because you will use up valuable resources to do things that aren't your core focus."

This is what modules are for. While not all business is the same, all business must do accounting.

This system is well suited to business that have many locations in many countries. A business like this uses some type of groupware to bring everyone in the business together. Much of fa already has features like locations, employees, suppliers, etc. that are used in groupware.

Perhaps it should be the other way around, maybe fa could become a module of a good groupware system.

We all love fa, may the force be with you.

Alvin

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."  - Aristotle.
  • From: USA
  • Registered: 11/21/2008
  • Posts: 44

Re: Change of license

Thanks everyone for your great responses to my comments on the new license and opinions on front accounting.

I am very excited about what the future has for front accounting and I think if we are ok to just put a link to fa's website for our clients to download the code from there if they want it, then that would work just fine for us.

We will do our best to contribute any valuable ideas we have for improving front accounting, but it sounds like you guys are already on top of a lot of the things we would like to see.

We look forward to the future releases and we will definitely talk with our investors about getting some funding together that we can contribute to your project if we decide to embrace front accounting as a core part of our business.

Thanks again for such a wonderful program,

Dave

  • kiang
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Re: Change of license

How's the status in changing the license? Please read the comments in the news:
https://frontaccounting.com/wbt/pages/posts/new-license-type-gnu-agpl-from-release-2.166.php

Therefore, as OpenAccounting and WebERP use the GPL v2, not v3, it is not possible to change FrontAccounting to AGPL v1 or 2, if any code is left from those projects.

When using AGPL, anyone who could access the application could ask a copy of the source code. When making a special pricing logic for your customer with AGPL version and some vendors could access it, the vendors could ask the source code of the logic and sell it to another competitor.

Hosting the application without contributing back the modifications to the community is evil. But giving the rights to ask source code for the people other than customers is not a good idea, too.

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

First, I do not see why giving the rights to ask source code for people other than customers is a good idea. Any modifications we make to any open source product, we will publish anyway.

Second, to really benefit from open source, it is great to use work from other projects. A lot of other new projects are licensed under AGPL v3 today. Not being up2date on the license simply means, that the project in the long run will not be able to benefit from all of these great projects.

One example is a theme that we developed using styles and images from group-office http://www.group-office.com/. This theme is very nice. However, FrontAccounting wont be able to benefit from it, because their license is not gpl3 compatible.

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

I just want to clarify things a bit. OpenAccounting was a fork of WebErp, but the code was totally rewritten by the authors of OA.
We have got a permission from the author of OpenAccounting to increase the license to GPL v.3. OA was discontinued back in 2005. And the GPL v3 and AGPL v.3 are compatible, so there should be no problems by using the license GNU AGPL v.3 (or later) for FA.

/Joe

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

rasmus_kristensen wrote:

First, I do not see why giving the rights to ask source code for people other than customers is a good idea. Any modifications we make to any open source product, we will publish anyway.

Should have been

First, I do not see why giving the rights to ask source code for people other than customers is not a good idea. Any modifications we make to any open source product, we will publish anyway.

  • kiang
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Re: Change of license

According to the FAQ in gnu.org: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatIsCompatible

In my understanding, the word 'compatible' means the programs which released under either GPLv3 or AGPLv3 could put together. It doesn't mean anyone could change the licenses of either program between GPLv3 and AGPLv3.

I've sent the message to legal@lists.gpl-violations.org. Just wait for further explanation.

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

Kiang, what is your point? Do you mean that we should stay with the GPLv3 and not use AGPLv3?

/Joe

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

Dear all,
We have stopped the release 2.1.0 beta until this issue is solved. We might need to release under GPLv3.

/Joe

22 Reply by kiang (edited by kiang 02/05/2009 09:11:01 am)

  • kiang
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Re: Change of license

I personally don't like AGPLv3 just because anyone could ask the source event if I'm not willing to release. I'm not doing business like SAAS or ASP.

AGPLv3 asks everybody to make the modifications in public(If the results are accessible in public). GPLv3 leaves a reserved area to developers who could choose to release the source or not and the source could be released to customers only. GPLv3 would encourage more businesses to get involved and since nobody could do everything without getting help from others, the modifications may get released in public one day if people really need it.

  • joe
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Re: Change of license

I understand Mr. kiang's concern. In the meantime we have got a permission from the author of OpenAccounting to also move to AGPLv3 with the leftover code from OA (about 15-20%). Remember that OA code was totally rewritten by the author of OA. So all in all we have the right to release under either GPLv3 or AGPLv3 and we are a bit confused. We want to do the best for the community and we want to re-release 2.1 beta again as soon as possible.
So please, give us some pros and cons regarding the license type beyond the discussions earlier, please smile

/Joe

  • kiang
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Re: Change of license

When using AGPLv3, the software will only be used by IT professionals or the users who don't know the detail of the license. It just like communism in web based software, fewer and fewer people would invest resources on it.

GPL asks people to give source code to the ones who legally got a copy of software. AGPL enlarges the scope to accessors. Which part of the accessors would like to study from the source code? In positive, yes, some community could get benefits from it. But in negative, how about the hackers, competitors, and malicious people?

Accounting software always stores critical information of the company. If you think FA should be a great study case in academia, maybe AGPL is a good choice.

Group-office released their community version in AGPL. I guess the reason is they are doing business in ASP/SAAS model. It's not in the same background.

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 05/13/2008
  • Posts: 31

Re: Change of license

Hi mr. kiang,

I understand your concerns. However, we have to remember that the source code is already available for download at sourceforge.net. This implies that both those who uses the software and those who supply it can get access to the source code. So in this sence hackers, competitors and malicious people already have access to the core of the system. If we considered this a problem, we should completely close the sourcecode for anyone who isn't "trusted". Usually the fact that the source is available is used as an argument, to why the system should be more secure. It is possible for other people to provide bugfixes, enhanced features etc.

I agree that there are a lot of cons in providing open source software if you use a traditional proprietary business model. But the great part in supplying ERP software is that an open source business model often works a lot better than an proprietary model. Being an ERP-software provider should often be a biproduct of supplying a good understanding of business processes, rather than being the primary product itself.

As I see it, the GPL v3 license has nothing to do with open source when it is used in web based projects. It is only intended for client based software. And when it comes to client based software, the GPL v3 works pretty much the same way as AGPL v3 works in web based projects.

I don't see why we should have a license at all, when it doesn't provide any protection to FrontAccounting. They might as well let go of the code and close down the project. Any big provider could use the source and never have to give anything back. This to me sounds like it would kill any open source project.

Lets say Micro$oft came and took the code of FA 2.1 and decided to supply it as a part of there new clouding product line. They would spend billions in promoting the software and most likely they will have great success in doing so. They will very likely also provide a lot of extra nice features. However, they will never have to give anything back to the community.