Waspman
Posts: 948
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 3:32 AM |
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What’s the licence situation with FCK, I’m sure you have to pay for commercial use?
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Gena
Posts: 591
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 6:52 AM |
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Yes, I am also confused about adding FCK editor support in CCS 3.1. I think 99% users of CSS used it for commercial use and FCK cost another $750 ! This is really strange step of YES... It will be better to add support some free WYSIWYG editor....
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Gena |
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Rene S
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 8:00 AM |
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GNU Lesser General Public License
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php
So it is free i think...
Rene
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Waspman
Posts: 948
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 8:32 AM |
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It says CDL?
and cost $750
http://www.fckeditor.net/license
?
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 10:41 AM |
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Gena,
Which free WYSIWYG editor compatible with all programming languages would you choose?
Waspman,
http://www.fckeditor.net/license says: "Open Source License" (LGPL).
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Peter R.
YesSoftware Forums Moderator
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Waspman
Posts: 948
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 10:46 AM |
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Yeah, just above where it says "Commercial Licence"
?
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feha
Posts: 712
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 11:31 AM |
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The support in CCS 3.1
is great for FCK editor.
You can not distribute the FCK with your own product if your product is not GPL ...
but you can use it in commercial or other projects for free.
I hope this helps.
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feha
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Gena
Posts: 591
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 11:37 AM |
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Quote feha:
The support in CCS 3.1 is great for FCK editor.
You can not distribute the FCK with your own product if your product is not GPL ...
but you can use it in commercial or other projects for free.
Could you please clarify it? What does mean Commercial version in this case? Not really understand this.
If I build e-commerce site, it site as a product is not for sale or distribution but it is Commertial thing so can I use FCK editor for free???
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Gena |
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:16 PM |
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Quote Waspman:Yeah, just above where it says "Commercial Licence"
I'm glad you noticed it now. My point is that you cannot conveniently ignore one license (LGPL) and tell everyone to use the commercial license (CDL). If you want to use CDL then use it, but make others aware that they can use LGPL if they choose to.
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:27 PM |
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Gena,
Will you and your customers really accept legal advice provided here via forums of a company not related to FCKeditor? I'm just little concerned about guessing game, rather than visiting FCKeditor Website and obtaining accurate answers provided directly by the company (or asking them directly).
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JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:29 PM |
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Can someone from YesSoftware resolve this by simply stating what we can and cannot do with FCKEditor in CCS under the LGPL?
- can we embed FCKEditor into a web site we sell to a client?
- can we embed FCKEditor into a web application that we sell to multiple clients?
- at what point would we need to buy the FCKEditor commercial license?
- generally, since we are not redistributing FCKEditor's package, rather, we are embedding its functionality into our web apps, maybe this is a non-issue and we never need the commercial license?
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:30 PM |
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Actually here are three direct quotes from the FCKeditor Website:
http://wiki.fckeditor.net/License
Quote :This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or any later version.
http://www.fckeditor.net/license
Quote :Open Source License
The editor is distributed under the LGPL, so you have the freedom to use it however you want. The full text of the license can be found here.
Commercial License
For many companies and products, Open Source licenses or the donation mechanism is not an option. This is why the Closed Distribution License (CDL)
http://wiki.fckeditor.net/FAQ
Quote :Can I use FCKeditor in my commercial software? Must my software be Open Source too?
The editor has been licensed under the Open Source LGPL license making it possible to use it with any kind of software you want. So, if you are ok with the LGPL terms, go ahead using FCKeditor in your commercial software. You may use any LGPL compatible license you want for your software, and it is not mandatory for it to be Open Source or Free Software.
Even if it is free to use the editor, consider giving something back to the project if you are using it, mainly on commercial software. In this way you can help us maintain the project and the high quality of the editor. It is also the only way for us to compete with commercial editors. Take a look at our commercial license and the support options.
For many companies and products, Open Source licenses or the donation mechanism is not an option. This is why the Closed Distribution License has been introduced: http://www.fckeditor.net/license/commercial
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JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:31 PM |
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Quote peterr:
Gena,
Will you and your customers really accept legal advice provided here via forums of a company not related to FCKeditor? I'm just little concerned about guessing game, rather than visiting FCKeditor Website and obtaining accurate answers provided directly by the company (or asking them directly).
c'mon Peter. that's a copout. certainly YesSoftware must have had some idea as to the legal use of a 3rd-party tool before you spent all the effort adding it to CCS.
we are not looking for legal advice. what was YesSoftware's intent and understanding as to the use of this add-on?
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:37 PM |
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JimmyCrackedCorn,
No one at YesSoftware can decide how FCKEditor can be used, we have no control of their licensing, don't know how it may be changed in the future, and we don't even include FCKeditor in CCS. CCS only provide support for that product as a 3rd party component in case someone decides to use it on their own. Imagine that in the future CCS may provide support for hundreds of various 3rd party components, maybe even some provided by you. Would you want us to provide legal advice on how to use hundreds of products, including your own? Wouldn't you want customers using your products to ask you those questions instead?
CCS also supports several ASP upload components that come with their own licensing. We never seen questions about licensing terms of those components...
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feha
Posts: 712
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:41 PM |
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I think:
You can use FCK editor in any of your commercial projects (not products) and install separate for each client.
You can not include and distribute FCK editor with your commercial product without CDL.
(FCK can not be a part of your product)
Difference is Product and Service.
However you can add FCK support in your web application without delivering/distributing FCK editor and this has nothing to do with any legal issue.
This is my opinion and the way how i understand CDL
and the word is Closed Distribution License ...
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feha
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 12:47 PM |
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Quote JimmyCrackedCorn:we are not looking for legal advice. what was YesSoftware's intent and understanding as to the use of this add-on?
OK  The above 3 quotes from FCKeditor Website should provide truly good answers. They look too me as very clear and straightforward. And my personal understanding is that you can choose to use LGPL or commercial license, plus some FCKeditor documents mention only LGPL, which you can print for your records.
If this really doesn't help then why not ask FCkeditor any additional questions?
YesSoftware didn't have any other intent than various customers stating "we use FCkeditor and would like it to be better supported within CCS". The wish has been fulfilled
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JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 1:00 PM |
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Quote peterr:YesSoftware didn't have any other intent than various customers stating "we use FCkeditor and would like it to be better supported within CCS". The wish has been fulfilled
I'm not sure what concerns me more, that you truly would add support for a 3rd-party component without considering legal issues for your customers or that you won't just state your understanding as to how we can legally use the 3rd-party component.
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Gena
Posts: 591
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 1:23 PM |
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Quote JimmyCrackedCorn:
Quote peterr:YesSoftware didn't have any other intent than various customers stating "we use FCkeditor and would like it to be better supported within CCS". The wish has been fulfilled
I'm not sure what concerns me more, that you truly would add support for a 3rd-party component without considering legal issues for your customers or that you won't just state your understanding as to how we can legally use the 3rd-party component.
Yes, good point of view. When YES adds a general support for the 3rd party component - this is one thing. But when he adds build-in support for some specific component - this is another thing. In this case they should CLEAR states how we should use that component.
Now it seems like: we added supports for FCK but we don't know nothing about if it legal to use or not
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 1:52 PM |
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JimmyCrackedCorn,
1. I think that you could be most concerned if YesSoftware did not offer support for any 3rd party products. Rather supporting a 3rd party component looks to me like a good step forward.
You are correct that YesSoftware did not and will not consider legal issues for customers who decide to use 3rd party components - there are legal reasons behind this.
Therefore yes, this is a problem that may prevent us from including support for 3rd party components into CCS. Should we remove FCKeditor support from the next release?
What about support for ASP upload components? And what about suport for various databases, like MySQL or Oracle?
And how do you handle this issue in your work? Do your customers accept your advice about legal use of MySQL? Do you write documents that interpret MySQL license? Will your customers use your interpretation of MySQL license, rather then the real license itself? Are you legally responsible for your customers using MySQL because your product supports it?
2. My (personal for now) understanding on use of the FCKeditor is exactly as provided on FCKeditor Website and quoted above. Here it is again:
http://wiki.fckeditor.net/FAQ
Quote :Can I use FCKeditor in my commercial software? Must my software be Open Source too?
The editor has been licensed under the Open Source LGPL license making it possible to use it with any kind of software you want. So, if you are ok with the LGPL terms, go ahead using FCKeditor in your commercial software. You may use any LGPL compatible license you want for your software, and it is not mandatory for it to be Open Source or Free Software.
Although this is my personal understanding, I'm not sure why company understanding would be different from FCKeditor's own statement, thus I suspect I am not doing anything wrong by providing this answer - quoted directly from FCKeditor.
However, looking at Feha's post I see that FCkeditor distribution model may not be so clear. Thus if you want to include FCKeditor in your application then what would be wrong about contacting FCKeditor? JimmyCrackedCorn, you are welcome to post their answer here as well.
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davemalen
Posts: 13
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 2:03 PM |
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I cant believe it Yes gives us support for FCK and now people complain.
Come on guys lots of software companies offer support for 3rd party products, some are free and some require a license. Yes cant say what other companies will do in the future regarding licensing. I for one am very grateful for the integration and hope they do more in the future.
Well done Yes keep up the good work!
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Gena
Posts: 591
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 2:07 PM |
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My idea is that YES should adds just posibility to anyone to use any 3rd party component. Look at Clarion template system - there are a template language! Finish! And nowevery one can write its own component, buy 3rd-party component etc. For Clarion no problem - it will works with these components like its own.
But now I think YES goes different (bad) way - it adds come specific component as build-in features and not adds a possibility to add ANY other components.
OK, there is SDK - BUT what is this animal? And where we can catch it?  Is it really clear SDK and opened for every one? Don't think so... That's because now there is NO 3rd party market for CCS and it seems like very "black box" product.
btw I am very happy with CCS!!  but again - look better at Clarion idea - template system and embedded points! This is really cool and very very flexible and expandable way !
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peterr
Posts: 5971
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 2:18 PM |
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I just got an internal answer about considerations that we've made when selecting FCKeditor. There were two considerations:
First, we've looked at number of requests for FCKeditor support vs other WYSIWYG components. Most people asked for FCKeditor and we went with this request. No legal considerations were made because it seems that this is what users asked for and it should be sufficient.
Second, we've looked for any components that are fairly mature and work with multiple technologies that CCS supports: PHP, ASP, .NET, Java. We've compared several components and noticed that FCKeditor is clearly the winner, which also may be related to the first consideration - it explains why most people seem to use it and ask for it.
If we did have multiple choices then probably we would've also looked at the pricing model and try to select a low priced or free component. However, knowing that FCKeditor is open source (LGPL) also made it clear from beginning that it's not a bad choice, regardless of specific licensing terms. It seems now that FCKeditor offers some sort of dual licensing, but so does MySQL. And unfortunately we don't know when FCKeditor started offering the dual license, which makes it even more difficult or impossible to take legal considerations into account when supporting 3rd party products. For example many products that offered GPL/LGPL licensing suddenly switched to dual licensing at various times (including MySQL I think) . Thus many legal considerations and answers regarding 3rd party product licensing could become invalid at a moments notice, possibly making us responsible for some information or interpretation we might've provided a long time ago. 3rd party product pricing and versioning may also change.
Gena,
I may comment later about your last point, although generally we're aware of CCS shortcomings in the areas of general extensibility and SDK, and looking into ways of addressing those.
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feha
Posts: 712
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 2:30 PM |
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"You offer a hand others want whole arm..."
This is a good step, many (people) already use FCKEditor on their projects.
If you decide to include FCK Editor as integrated component for distribution with your product I suggest discuss this FCK Editor creator.
Let's say YES can buy a CDL to distribute even FCKEditor with CCS ?!
But than again you create your product with CCS so do you still have right to distribute a FCKEditor or you must order your own FCKEditor CDL ...
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Gena
Posts: 591
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 2:39 PM |
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Quote :
Gena,
I may comment later about your last point, although generally we're aware of CCS shortcomings in the areas of general extensibility and SDK, and looking into ways of addressing those.
Great! Thank you!
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JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 10/28/2006, 4:16 PM |
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Quote feha:"You offer a hand others want whole arm..."
oh please. the questions being asked are perfectly legit. we just want to know if we can actually use the new "feature" without paying a large sum to a 3rd-party.
It is also in YesSoftware's best interest to clarify this too. If we can use the component without paying extra then it is a benefit to CCS. If we must pay another $750, probably not so much of a benefit.
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marcwolf
Posts: 361
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| Posted: 10/29/2006, 4:50 AM |
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Hmmm..
If I can put my 2 bits worth in here.
FCK integration.. is an excellent step. As for the licensing - I agree with Peter - You can download FCK yourselves (I have) and installed in on our webserver (I have), and also told some of my clients to download it themselves (They Have)
As for the arguement re licensing and Yes's obligations...
The provise support for several file upload components. They do not include these in their product but merely add's the support hooks to integrate this is.
I don't see people complaining that Yes does not supply these components , or have arranged an licensing agreement with the respective companies.
I like ASPUpload. I have purchase ASPUpload and told my clients to do likewise. There is no issue there. I see the same situation with FCK.
Each person who want to use it MUST evaluate in their own mind how and what licensing they want to use.
And thank Yes for providing the hooks to use it.
My views only
Dave
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robertmann
Posts: 109
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| Posted: 10/29/2006, 7:26 AM |
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In the past I asked similar questions to many companies providing GPL products and the usual answer was to seek attorney advice. Not a good answer but I understand why it can be irresponsible or even dumb for someone like YES to take responsibility of an attorney and explain somebody elses license. It could be even worse if answer from YES was found to be wrong or inaccurate or only different from possible answer provided by FCK!
If you dont have an attorney you can read the full text of LGPL license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html. LGPL license provides detailed explanation and answers to many questions.
Wikipedia also offers good explanation of LGPL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGPL
LGPL license covers and explains several methods of including and distributing LGPL components with other products. In many cases it should not be a problem to include and distribute free FCK editor with commercial Web applications but there may be cases where this is not allowed. You have to RTFL and decide for yourself if your application will use FCK in a way that would violate its license. For example you may not be able to use FCK LGPL license if its not possible to upgrade FCK component in your application without your involvement. This can happen when your own license doesn't allow such modifications or when you encrypted your application or when you extended FCK component, etc. Therefore only you can determine when you may not be able to use the LGPL license and then you can decide to purchase the commercial license.
From FCK website only this statement may need explanation: 'For many companies and products, Open Source licenses or the donation mechanism is not an option.'
Does this mean commercial license is for companies that don't want to use free open source licenses and because of their own policy don't accept LGPL?
Or does this mean the commercial license is offered for those products that include FCK in a way that would violate its LGPL license?
I think both answers are true and you can chose to buy the commercial license or may be required to buy it in certain cases. In many cases it is not required.
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RonB
Posts: 228
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| Posted: 10/29/2006, 10:16 AM |
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I'm a bit surprised by the reasoning here by some people. So here's my take on it:
1 Yes does not distribute FCKeditor. It only made a component that will let you integrate FCKEditor if you downloaded it yourself!!
2. If you do the same i.e. make a page that will include fckeditor and let your customer upload fckeditor there are no problems. If you even offer fckeditor as a seperate download from your own website without any changes....no problem.
3. If you use a closed source liscence for yourself and want to include fckeditor in the package you need a cdl. If you offer it as a seperate and free download.... no problem
4. if you use an gpl liscence and include fckeditor in the packgage.....no problem.
It seems there only is a problem when you deliver closed source software with fckeditor included without others being able to see. So if you want to take other peoples software and pass it off as your own you are in trouble.... and rightly so.
Again: Yes does not provide FCKeditor with CCS...you have to download it yourself. That means yes is not distributing anything. It could have offered support for integrating a $2000 dollar editor this way without getting in to trouble.
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robertmann
Posts: 109
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| Posted: 10/29/2006, 12:57 PM |
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Quote :3. If you use a closed source liscence for yourself and want to include fckeditor in the package you need a cdl.
This is not true because the LGPL license reads:
'6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice'
'7. You may place library facilities that are a work based on the Library side-by-side in a single library together with other library facilities not covered by this License, and distribute such a combined library'
There are exceptions to these rules that I described above and in the text of the license. Ron's comment may be true about GPL license, not LGPL that is used by FCK.
If this is not clear you should seek legal advice 
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JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 10/29/2006, 2:34 PM |
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I guess the bottom line is you could just do like CCS does (as RonB suggested above). Provide the hooks for the FCKeditor and require your customers to download and install it themselves. That way nobody ever needs to figure out the license or assume any responsibility. (Of course, our customers/end-users would likely be asking us the same questions we are asking here!!)
Is it even technically possible to use FCKeditor in CCS but not distribute FCKeditor with your finished work?
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