Ecosee, discussion about copyright, licenses and their plans

[dakwegmo]

I run a webhosting company and specialize in pixelpost. Email me through my profile and maybe I can help. I can't promise anything as I don't have anything to do with your current host. But when you host with my company, I do a full install of the platform for you and it prevents a lot of problems down the line. Just something to think about if you get that frustrated.


What's the name of your webhosting company? It would be cool if we had another web host we could recommend that was as big a supporter/promoter of PixelPost as Eleven2.

[EcoSee]

Dakwegmo~

The hosting site is EcoSee.com (http://www.ecosee.com) We love pixelpost so much that we redesigned our entire hosting service around it and wrote several custom addons and 50 custom templates (30 of those center horizontally and vertically). Its offered as a finished photohosting service where the user never has anything to do with the servers. We offer three hosting plans and do the install for everyone who signs up. If a user simply wants hosting without any of our customization and full access to the servers we can do a plain install of the basic pixelpost platform and step out of the picture. We offer the following plans:

"Artist's Sales Plan"
We have a custom Paypal addon that lets you enter different sizes and prices for each photo available.

"Stock Photography Plan"
This one lets you simply enter the image ID number from your stock images and it is automatically linked to the agency page.

"Friends and Family Plan"
This one has a print fulfillment service built into it, where the print facility uses Fuji Crystal Archive Paper for the prints.

Let me know your thoughts,

EcoSee.com

[austriaka]

EcoSee, your site looks very professional and your plans seem quite convenient.

But I am completely missing any hint that you are using Pixelpost for your offer or that
jaywilliams is the orignal author of your Lightroom Plugin

[EcoSee]

I'll get right to that this evening... any other feedback is welcome!

Thank You...

[dakwegmo]

EcoSee, your site looks very professional and your plans seem quite convenient.

But I am completely missing any hint that you are using Pixelpost for your offer or that
jaywilliams is the orignal author of your Lightroom Plugin


I was going to say...

It looks like a great service for people who don't really want to deal with the day to day management of a website. Prices seem a little steep, since hosting is cheap and PixelPost is free.

Which brings me to the other point autriaka makes. The PixelPost team is a small group of people who have put a lot of time and effort into developing and maintaining it. It is distributed freely, with the sole condition that you properly recognize the contribution of those developers.

It is totally uncool to capitalize on their work without giving due credit.

I'll get right to that this evening...

It's the only payment we ask.

[EcoSee]

Okay~

I added the footer tag crediting Pixelpost with a link back to the main site. In the future there will be more of an "about us" page where I will expand that explanation even further.

As for pricing... Eleven2 charges $83.64 per year for their "small" plan. At $49.95 per year, we are priced much lower than that and our Paypal Version is priced at $79.95 per year which is still lower. Other paypal powered, advertising free, professional photo portfolio sites charge anywhere from $200 to $400 per year... so really... EcoSee is way under priced in comparision. Even Smugmug charges $139 for their pro version. And we do do all the leg work of the install!

Thanks for the feedback!

[austriaka]

Okay~

I added the footer tag crediting Pixelpost with a link back to the main site. In the future there will be more of an "about us" page where I will expand that explanation even further.

Seems ok to me now, assuming that the copyright notice of Pixelpost team is still intact in the source code of the pixelpost package and the indication to the GNU General Public License is provided.

GNU General Public Licence states out clearly how you have to deal with copyright and license when conveying modified source versions:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.

You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.

5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

* a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date.
* b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
* c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
* d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so.

Following these terms of GNU General Public License you cannot restrict the license of Pixelpost. And your modified source code must be available for your customers, with a download link for example since you don't offer an FTP account in your plans.

Besides you should check all Addons you are offering with your package for copyright and license and make sure that appropriate credit is given.
Attention: if there is no License attached to an Addon, it does not mean that it is completely free for (ab)use, but contrariwise the license is restricted to "all right reserved". So better ask the addon authors if it is ok to offer their work in your package. As far as I can see from your website it concerns at least Dwilkinsjr for his Auto-Resize-Addon, Jaywilliams for the Adobe Lightroom Plugin and Dennis for the Google Map Addon.

And better ask Jaywilliams if it is ok for him to be mentioned like this on your site, it looks as he is part of your developer team...

[Dennis]

Besides you should check all Addons you are offering with your package for copyright and license and make sure that appropriate credit is given.
Attention: if there is no GNU General Public License attached to an Addon, it does not mean that it is completely free for (ab)use, but contrariwise the license is restricted to "all right reserved". So better ask the addon authors if it is ok to offer their work in your package. As far as I can see from your website it concerns at least Dwilkinsjr for his Auto-Resize-Addon, Jaywilliams for the Adobe Lightroom Plugin and Dennis for the Google Map Addon.


Other than that the paypal addon sounds vaguely familiar to the buy from paypal addon/hack by RobbieMc. You also mentioned you have 50 custom templates. I assume, since there is no credit list you wrote them all yourself. I'm wondering how long this took? If you didn't write them all yourself I suggest you contact the original authors regarding the copyright and licenses.

I'm not sure if everyone would be happy about this the way it is now.

[EcoSee]

Okay... I'll keep working on making everything right. I don't want to step on anyone's toes or overstep any bounds... I just think its a great platform and wanted to expand upon it and simplify it for those who aren't quite as technical with regards to installation. The 50 templates are fine as they follow the rules provided in their use. And the paypal addon is not from the hack... that only allowed one price and or size to be set all the way across the entire site. This is far more complex and was written from the ground up as an actual addon and not just a piece of code added to the image_template. Credit has not been removed from the code at all as the pixel post team is still recognized in the code. And I'll work on the addon permissions/credit etc...

Or if this is too complicated and the authors are offened by what I have done... I could change it all to just offer pixelpost installation and the addition of my custom addons and that could solve all the issues.

[austriaka]

Ecosee, of course I cannot speak for the whole team and for all the Addon authors. But I didn't want to depreciate your work, everybody who is successful in his own business and makes money from it has my respect.
I think you had a good idea in what you are doing but when looking into your site for the first time it looked as if you are selling the right to use your own photoblog software and this is definitely not ok.
In my humble opinion (but I'm not a lawer of course) people should know what they pay for: this is hosting, installation and using a free software on their own domain.
Right now it sounds like they have to pay for the use of Pixelpost without even knowing and this is not ok.

So a solution might be to state out clearly that your software offer is based on a free product and you sell the convenience. I guess the Addon authors won't be so strict as long as their work is still valued.
You know that there is a donation button for Pixelpost and most addon authors have one too? ;)

Perhaps a "professional" plan could complete your product range where you offer a domain package with pre-installed (unchanged) Pixelpost together with FTP and detailed information about the free Pixelpost community values.

[EcoSee]

austriaka

Okay... I like your thoughts on this... I'll keep at the drawing board until its perfect. I have every intent of donating... if it ever makes money... and what a lot of other free software sites like yours do is to put links to hosting companies they approve of where the link is tracked with an affiliate code. I have that ability to do this if Pixelpost wanted to add a section about hosting opportunities to their site. The affiliate link would pay the pixelpost team 20% recurring revenues... which could go into the "donation" account for further development. I don't know if that is even something you might be interested in... but I would be happy to set this up if it is...

[Dennis]

Ecosee, I really like the way your picking this up. I compliment you on your willingness to do things right. As for me, I see no problem in using my addons on your site. I wrote them after all to get used by Pixelpost users. It would be nice to be appreciated in some way (This can be a donation or a link back to my page with the mention of my name (or both :p))

Are there any plans to give the paypal addon to the public? I for one am very interested (I can obviously build my own, but free time is hard to come by these days).

[austriaka]

Right now we have no affiliated hosting companies, no affiliates at all. It is an idea we have to discuss in the team of course.
First thought is that Pixelpost should stay completely independent.
But on second thought it might be reasonable to consider.

Ecosee, I want to say that too, your good will to respect the limitations and value of an open source project is very much appreciated!

[dakwegmo]

Let me echo what Dennis and Karin have said as well. It's good to see that you're willing to make everything right. I really like the idea of the service you're offering, and as long as every gets the credit they are due, then I would have no problem recommending your services to friends looking to get a photoblog setup without the hassle of having to deal with hosting.


As for pricing... Eleven2 charges $83.64 per year for their "small" plan. At $49.95 per year, we are priced much lower than that and our Paypal Version is priced at $79.95 per year which is still lower. Other paypal powered, advertising free, professional photo portfolio sites charge anywhere from $200 to $400 per year... so really... EcoSee is way under priced in comparision. Even Smugmug charges $139 for their pro version. And we do do all the leg work of the install!


Doh! I'm so used to seeing price per month for hosting that it didn't even register that those were annual prices not monthly. In that case, I think it's a very good deal.

[EcoSee]

Thank you for the open discussion on the logistics and licensing of this project. I have been working on it for six months... obviously in my spare time as well as I have to do the paying job thing too. Dennis... I'm gonna work on the link backs... do you think that they should be in the addons page or somewhere on my main site... ??? And donations to individual authors or the team will certainly come in proportion to any success I have with this... whether I simply donate on some interval or you guys decide to go the affiliate route and create a "hosting" section in the menu or something like that....

As for releasing my custom addons... There is an About Addon that lets people enter their about page information from the admin screen so they don't have to edit the file. There is the Print Service Addon and the Paypal Addon. I have been debating whether to release them to the whole community or keep them as my "carrot". That decision has not been finalized as of yet...

[jaywilliams]

EcoSee, just to let you know, according to the GPL, you CAN charge a fee for copies of a GPL program. That is not an issue. The issue is simply that the copyright notices were removed and nowhere is it stated that the source code is under the GPL and is available upon request.

Now as for the addons & templates, that's a different story. If the authors haven't specified a license in their code, you'll need to contact them individually to make sure they give your their consent.

Of course, I'm no lawyer, so I'd recommend you read the GPL for yourself:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php

[EcoSee]

Thanks Jay~

I'll work my way through it tonight...and certainly make everything right... how do you feel about the plugin?

[Dennis]

Well, you could put the links on a separate page, sort of a credit page.

As for the paypal addon, to bad you haven't decided on it yet. Looks like I need some free time then. ;) Normally with all the addons on the extend we do some kind of peer-review to either check for malicious code or security flaws.

Please remember that stuff posted on Extend does not make it Public Domain and code is still copyrighted. (Same goes for code posted on the homepage (e.g. my page)).

[jaywilliams]

... how do you feel about the plugin?

As long as as you state somewhere that I'm original author of the plugin and provide a link back to my company site (myd3.com), I'm happy.

[EcoSee]

Thanks to both Jay and Dennis for your permission. I will start working on the best way to credit authors and continue to get permission from the remaining contributors etc. :)

[phild]

This Ecosee service is very strange, and despite what is written above, the only form of credit to Pixelpost is in the "terms of service" page (who reads those ?), and comme par hasard with a typo (Pixlepost) !

The phrase of this so-called credit is so intricate that it looks like it's been written to avoid clarifying the relationship between Pixelpost and Ecosee :
LICENSING EXPLANATION OF CORE VERSUS SEPARATE SECTIONS
The following sections of our program are not being distributed as part of a whole of the original program and are therefore not subject to the GPL license that governs the body of the original platform and its source code. (…) In no way is EcoSee trying to change the licensing of these individual modules or attempting to claim development or warranty of their code and performance. Only the Vanilla Plan constitutes a distribution of the original source code project that is fully governed by the GPL. The Vanilla Plan is not modified in any way and is also available for download under the original developer's website. For further details regarding the core platform and the extended modules please visit Pixlepost.org


By the way, I don't see any "Vanilla Plan" in the offers.

On the other hand, Ecosee is very keen to build walls around its use of Pixelpost and derived templates and addons :
It is illegal To Remove The Following Designer Credit.
You may add to it, but you may not remove it under
copyright protection and punishable by law.

I haven't seen any mention of Pixelpost elsewhere in the website, neither authors of plugins used. No mention in the code of the demo site. Nothing in the FAQ.

Mr Ecosee, why don't you simply sell a hosting plan for Pixelpost photoblogs — or rather, say clearly that it is what you do ? Many hosters provide Wordpress pre-installs, for example, and just say so. Or do you fear competition from the very service that you hijack ?

It is true that if people realise that your added value is preinstalling Pixelpost on 100MB disk space for $99 / year, you will quickly run out of customers. Just for the sake of comparison (no endorsement there, it's just the first on a list, and not the cheapest ) :
DreamHost
“WordPress 2.6 auto-install and upgrade, 1 TB disk storage, 10 TB bandwidth, free domain, unlimited databases, 3000 email accounts, unlimited domain forwarding, Jabber support.” for $15 less.

Come on, clean-up your act, tell the truth, and give credit where credit is due.

[Dennis]

This sound indeed very different than what we have discussed in the past. Let me make this clear: despite the fact I released the addons used in this package as GPL I do not waive my rights. The source is free to use and free to modify but still very much copyrighted by me.

Obviously you can make money by reselling programs released under the GPL. One of the other restrictions is that if you make modifications you HAVE to publish them to the world. Still haven't seen that.

And why not give something back to the developers? We spend countless hours providing something free for the community and other people start making money from it.

This, among others, is also the reason I don't release the latest version of the googlemaps addon to the public. I fear when Pixelpost 2.0 has arrived all my plugins will solely exists on either my own server or on the servers of friends.