Thread

I have two questions regarding the license.

First of all, I thought you were going to rethink the license. This leads me to question one: Why even have a license at all? I get the the not distributing part but I mean usage; why arbitrarily limit us with what we can do with EE? Just say do what you want and there will be less problems all around.

Secondly, If I’m building a website around groups (custom module or existing modules) can I allow a user to create a group and use it as their private mini-site/blog. I ask because this is possible with included modules but you don’t allow EE to be used like blogger.

To expand on the second question, a user can create a group and a blog post (both of which are channels). The user can then assign a blog post to a group using a relationship field. The group can be public (allow anyone to to post to) or private (allow only the creator to post).

I don’t want an “email sales to discuss this further” reply I want a publicly viewable response. I’m always open about my negative thoughts on EllisLab but I always keep on coming back to EE and CodeIgniter because they are such fantastic products and I have a project lined up that would benfit from using EE.

Hi, SF -

The license is under review but that is a major undertaking; it is not something that we are going to rush through, for instance. 

Why even have a license at all?

To protect our IP, copyright, software, and company.

why arbitrarily limit us with what we can do with EE?

We do not arbitrarily place limits on what you can do.  The license restrictions are informed by both the intent of the software and the technical limitations.

Secondly, If I’m building a website around groups (custom module or existing modules) can I allow a user to create a group and use it as their private mini-site/blog

You can not provide hosting for third-parties.  This means that you can not give autonomous sites to others, hosted within ExpressionEngine.

What you can do is provide shared spaces where many people contribute to the overall site.  For instance, you can run a newspaper with EE, and have columnists that essentially have their own section (their column); but because this is not autonomous and is closely tied to the newspaper, it is a good fit for ExpressionEngine.

I don’t want an “email sales to discuss this further” reply I want a publicly viewable response. I’m always open about my negative thoughts on EllisLab but I always keep on coming back to EE and CodeIgniter because they are such fantastic products and I have a project lined up that would benfit from using EE.

The reason why we ask people to email sales is because we often have to go fairly in-depth with the project’s requirements; and often-times, the customer does not want those nitty-gritty details public.  It also allows us to work more closely with the customer and the project, to figure out if EE is a good fit.

Obviously you need a license to protect your IP, copyright, software, and company but I mean in the usage sense. In what way is telling us what we can’t do with the software, which it is definitely capable of, not an arbitrary limitation?

I can think of many ways to break your limitations with the included modules. The channel and query modules are enough for any competent developer to create a full blogger clone or generic third party hosting solution. That rules out the technical limitations.

My specific scenario is a good example of arbitrary limits. I can allow anyone to create groups and I can allow anyone to create blog posts but I can’t allow anyone to create groups with only their blog posts.

I only wanted this public so it might be useful for others as it gets brought up a lot with no real response. I know private email is sometimes the best way so I apologise for not explaining my reason and sounding rude.

Can I just barge in here for a second…  😏

What you can do is provide shared spaces where many people contribute to the overall site.  For instance, you can run a newspaper with EE, and have columnists that essentially have their own section (their column); but because this is not autonomous and is closely tied to the newspaper, it is a good fit for ExpressionEngine.

What if, in addition to that, you would make available all the postings by any author so they can display the most recent entries on their own personal website via an rss or atom feed or something like that.

I’m stopping there. I understand why EE doens’t want people using the software as a hosting service.

But I am quite serious though. I want to know.

Thanks.

You can show all posts by an author and have a feed of those posts.

Yes technically one can, I know. But what I meant was: is that a breach of the license?

Because it is a step closer to some kind of hosting although not actual hosting of a real site or blog.

I meant you can by the license. This has already been discussed and allowed by EllisLab.

O great! :zip: Sorry I didn’t understand you correctly. Thanks McFly

So long as the site fits the licensing of EE, you can allow drill-down by author.