Sharetronix Blog

The new Sharetronix v1.5 is out and we hope you do enjoy all the new features (most of which were requested by youJ)

With the new version however comes a new license and I will try to explain why is that needed.

In an open source community people work together to create a good script, however in our case there were many occasions where users have developed add-ons that were never shared back to the community and there were cases where users were reselling the software and some of them were stating that this is their own software. We received inquiries from a couple of companies to confirm that this script is written by us. Not cool people!

In the light of these events we decided to change the license from Affero GPL to our own license which basically allows you to use Sharetronix for FREE if it is for your personal community (which may or may not include Google Ads). Please read full license here

The commercial license is for companies who want to build their internal or external community, also for users who want to resell Sharetronix (you need to contact us for reseller agreement) or want to develop their own plugins to Sharetronix and sell them (agreement here as well).

Also the Powered by Blogtronix link removal fee has changed. Again, we do not want you to remove the link – we want to have your community powered by us J, but if you insist to take it out, please pay the fee here

I am sure you have questions, so please read the license and if it is still unclear – go ahead, email us J

As always, thank you for the continuous support!

Carl Icon Hi @Sofiya - Does the new license also apply to older versions of the sharetronix micro-blogging platform ? Or does it apply just to v1.5 ?


Jul 12, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Blogtronix Admin Hi Carl, the new license applies to 1.4.2 and later versions of Sharetronix only. You have a copy of the license in your source code and you can see what was the license at the time you downloaded it if you did not read it when you got the code.


Jul 12, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Blogtronix Admin Sorry, the new license applies to 1.5 a later only. So, if you have 1.4.2 you need to look at the old license terms and conditions that are in the code.


Jul 12, 2010 at 12:33 pm
emre I thought it would be 1.5 for free.
Extreme price $ 499
I guess I'll continue using 1.4.2


Jul 12, 2010 at 03:23 pm
Blogtronix Admin @emre, I am not sure why $499 is extreme, try $20,00 that some are charging for less or $15 per user per month


Jul 13, 2010 at 03:00 am
widioke Hi Sofia, You said that it is FREE for our personal community (which may or may not include Google Ads, but in the license detail I found this: "Licensee shall not receive money, donations, goods or services in exchange for external sponsorship of the Licensee's instance."

So, If I use personal license, Can I add google ads or any other banner/contextual ads into my .com site?

thanks


Jul 13, 2010 at 03:37 am
Blogtronix Admin Hi @widioke, please read the whole thing:
Licensee shall not, without the prior written consent of Blogtronix, post any advertisements related to Sharetronix, or receive money, goods or services for providing professional services related to Sharetronix, including but not limited to custom development or support. Licensee shall not receive money, donations, goods or services in exchange for external sponsorship of the Licensee's instance.

What this says is that we don't want you to advertise Sharetronix software or services if we have not approve you first. Not that you can't post ads on your site. The is dues to the fact that some started to represent themselves in their countries as if they are sharetronix and they created the code themselves, some even started to sell our OPEN SOURCE license to others.


Jul 13, 2010 at 04:21 am
Emre Eryılmaz As the Turkish Linux Users Association, we've been using Sharetronix to power our social network located in http://tuxweet.linux.org.tr. We had selected Sharetronix specifically because of its AGPL license.

The move away from AGPL is really disturbing. It's not important that we (as a free software community) can use it for free as in beer; it should be free as in speech for all. We sincerely hope you've evaluated the downside of losing the support of free software community extensively. We're urging you to reconsider.

So we won't be upgrading to 1.5 and continue using the latest AGPL version of 1.4.2. Unless you reverse your decision of license change; we'll be looking into other software and migrate from Sharetronix to a "free" one as soon as possible.


Jul 14, 2010 at 03:44 am
- Sofiya Dimitrov hi Emre,
  since your community is not commercial or business you can use the Sharetronix Personal version. If you read the new license you will see that it gives you freedom in many aspects where the Affero GPL didn't. I hope you understand why we had to change the license - all these cases where our rights were abused - people selling our code illegally or presenting themselves as our representatives, were too many and hurting the Blogtronix brand. We hope the situation changes and then we will go back to AGPL. Thanks.
  
  
  Jul 14, 2010 at 01:38 pm
  - Doruk Fisek As a free software community, we are advocating for everyone's freedom, not just ourselves as a community.
    
    I believe many free software communities will look at your license and run away as fast as they can. Just as they do with other "free only to free software communities" licenses. I know we will, eventually. This will cause you to lose your community support and base for the software.
    
    I hope it won't be too late when you decide to go back to AGPL.
    
    
    Jul 21, 2010 at 08:41 am
Shawn Gossman We develop custom addons for our ST powered community. The addons are created mainly to integrate third party software and enhance features for our community. We however do not sell these developments nor do we share them with others outside our website due to competition control. Is this a problem? I mean its our own scripting that belong to us not to ST. I may be confused but I hope that what we are doing is fine. Shawn


Jul 15, 2010 at 12:33 am
Blogtronix Admin Hi Shawn, under the old license you were suppose to share them back, but with the new you don't


Jul 20, 2010 at 06:11 am