MyBB Goes Open Source, Now GNU GPL v3 Licensed

Chasingu · 10-12-2008

From Chris Boulton,

Hi all,

I'm pleased to announce, effective immediately that MyBB is no longer distributed under our own proprietary license agreement and is now distributed and licensed under the popular open-source GNU GPL v3.

The move to a fully open-source compatible license comes as we want to open MyBB up to the community and help support the world of free software.

For those not familiar with the GNU GPL v3 license, the GNU GPL license still allows you to use MyBB for free. You may also take a copy of MyBB, modify it and redistribute your derivative version as long as the internal copyright notices are left in tact and your derivative is also distributed under the GNU GPL license.

You may read the GNU GPL v3 license agreement MyBB is distributed with at: http://www.mybboard.net/about/license/.

Questions:

* Does this mean I can remove the MyBB 'Powered by' line?
In short - yes and no. The MyBB 'Powered by' line is no longer a requirement on the bottom of your forums, however if you wish to receive support from the MyBB team, it must be in place on your forum.

The 'Powered by' line is how MyBB promotes itself and we receive the majority of our users, we very much would appreciate it if you left it in place as a sign of respect for the hard work that goes in to this application.
* Which versions of MyBB are GNU GPL v3 licensed?
MyBB 1.4.2 and onwards will be licensed under the GNU GPL v3. Older releases of MyBB (1.4.1, 1.4, 1.2, 1.0 etc) are still licensed under our proprietary license agreement and still subject to the terms and conditions set forward in that agreement.
* What does this mean for me, the average Joe user?
To the average Joe, this change does not affect the way you use MyBB or run your forums. You do not need to change anything, you just need to make sure you comply with the terms and conditions set out via the GNU GPL - which if you meet our current license agreement, you already do.

If you have any questions or feedback about the license changes, please use the discussion thread and we'll do our best to answer them.

Regards,
Chris Boulton
MyBB Project Manager

G405T · 10-12-2008

At last, this will sort out all those over opinionated Open-Source only users, this could be a fair improvement for MyBB, it was only a matter of time :P they were practically open-source anyway!

PreppyChris · 10-12-2008

Heh, this was a rather interesting move for them to make. Very interesting! :)

G405T · 10-12-2008

They have been talking about it for a while, although they seemed to originally be saying that the GNU GPL license didn't offer enough protection...

.Adam · 10-13-2008

I still don't understand why it's now officially open source. Is it all down to the GNU GPL license?

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

I would be interested in knowing what factor made them change their minds.

G405T · 10-13-2008

I think it is simply so that KDE would use MyBB, KDE wouldnt use anything thats not open-source and this way they are advertising to almost every linux user! Hvae you seen the STATS already on the new KDE forum?! I wish mine grew that quick!

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

Ah, good point!

Amgad · 10-13-2008

I think this change to opensource will be abused...

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

I agree. We'll have to see how it goes.

G405T · 10-13-2008

The only bad thing I can see coming is duplicates of MyBB, other people trying to make 'improved' versions.

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

Ugh, now we're going to be seeing those heavily modified versions that are bloated with plugins.

G405T · 10-13-2008

your forgetting dodgy themes and bugs :P

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

Ugh, how could I forget?

jamietje · 10-13-2008

So what does this mean?

G405T · 10-13-2008

It will make very little difference to most people. But it means that you are now allowed to change any of the code and even remove the copyright (although I don't think people should, it wont do them favors in the long-run). It also means all these over opinionated 'open-source only' users can use MyBB now ;-)

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

Also, it's important to keep in mind that once you remove the copyright, you will not be able to receive any support from the MyBB Community.

Amgad · 10-13-2008

Yeah, that's why I still have it.
Proud user!
Anyways, I hate those copycat...

PreppyChris · 10-13-2008

I mean, look at all of the modded phpBB packages...

danrulz98 · 10-14-2008

Well, phpBB was crap to begin with.

Who knows, there might be a new software that is based off of MyBB that is actually better