SMF Bridge for Joomla! Discontinued

[Oldiesmann]

Thanks for helping me understand these confusing issues. I hope that everyone who uses SMF and Joomla can wait and see what we can come up with before jumping ship to another CMS. The Joomla project has officially supported SMF for a long time. These issues should come as no surprise to long-term members of the global open-source community and they have been overcome before!

SMF's license is not going to change. This announcement has come after weeks of discussion with both Joomla devs and the FSF. There is no other option at this point short of releasing SMF under the GPL, which isn't going to happen (although I won't get into the specific reasons here). We were really hoping it wouldn't come to this, but we don't feel we have any other option at this point. The FSF sees SMF+Joomla as a single application, and therefore both SMF and the bridge have to be released under the GPL for everything to be legal in the eyes of Joomla developers and the FSF.

[karlbenson]

I wonder, could a news item linking to this topic be added (if it already isnt)

Since alot of users may not discover this topic unless by chance like I did.

[Thantos]

The post in the News and Updates board has a link to this topic already.

[Kindred]

This issue of licensing is obviously coming to a head in the Joomla community but has been an issue for quite some time with all open-source projects. Here is a link to a document called "Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else." by David Wheeler in which he recounts a brief history of other projects with similar problems and the benefits of going with a GPL-compatible license for open-source projects.

Thanks for helping me understand these confusing issues. I hope that everyone who uses SMF and Joomla can wait and see what we can come up with before jumping ship to another CMS. The Joomla project has officially supported SMF for a long time. These issues should come as no surprise to long-term members of the global open-source community and they have been overcome before!

Finally, I'd like to point out that this is not a few rogue Joomla core team members' opinions, this is the project's official interpretation of the license. This interpretation has been made, similar to Motoko-chan's posts here, with the recommendations of many forerunners in IP law that specialize in the licensing of open-source projects. I believe that the intention of Joomla's interpretation is to HELP the community clarify what it means to be compatible with the GPL license that the community requests, not a call to arms. Please consider this before flaming because supporting the GPL is the exact freedom we've asked for as a community.

Whatever the intention of Joomla's re-interpretation, it has the effect of making all non-GPL scripts incompatible with Joomla.

Personally, I disagree with that interpretation. Several other GPL CMS softwares also disagree and have stated that they will/do include exceptions to their use of the GPL that will allow bridges like this.
In My Opinion, limitations like this were NOT the original purpose of GPL and I personally believe that this contrdicts the very spirit of Open Source and the GPL.

Unfortunately, it is not up to me. Joomla and the FSF have made their stance clear and we must (and will) accept that.

We currently have alpha and beta versions of bridges for e107, XOOPS and Mambo. I am setting up a test installation of each of those for people to compare and consider a shift to a different CMS if they so desire.

[karlbenson]

We currently have alpha and beta versions of bridges for e107, XOOPS and Mambo. I am setting up a test installation of each of those for people to compare and consider a shift to a different CMS if they so desire.

I'm sure people will appreciate it.

[b.IT]

since this situation seems stuck, perhaps there are other ways -  how about a client-side (javascript) bridge?

i am pretty sure that it's no violation of the gpl to call a not proprietary webservice from a gpl client or a webservice provided by gpled software from a proprietary client 

[Kindred]

javascript bridge?   That is unlikely and, IMO, unrealistic. You can't really do a bridge client-side.

[青山 素子]

From elsewhere:

I do have an idea for "integration" that might work around the license, but it wouldn't be all that nice and is kinda clunky. Basically, don't integrate SMF as a component via the bridge, and keep separate installs of Joomla! and SMF. With a third package (that is self-contained), watch for db modifications (new account, etc) and then do the same changes for the opposite package. With a small SMF mod, you might be able to get SMF to respect Joomla!'s login cookie and session info (assuming that won't trip the license issue) to allow a one-login solution. As I said, it is clunky, but I personally don't see that running into licensing issues as it doesn't touch any GPL code.

[Aaron]

Ironicly the Joomla forums are still powered by SMF.

[shadow82x]

Why are there forums powered by SMF when they have fireboard. Probably becuase fire board is so bad

[SleePy]

Their forums are not bridged with Joomla from what I know. I can't see anything that shows that they are bridged.

[jomaco1]

Ironicly the Joomla forums [nofollow] are still powered by SMF.

But they don't use the bridge.

[jomaco1]

Why are there forums powered by SMF when they have fireboard. Probably becuase fire board is so bad

Their forums are powered by SMF because it is a powerful board capable of handling the large number of users and posts they expected. At the time, FireBoard did not exist; but even if it did, it is nowhere near as sophisticated as SMF, nor is it's predecessor, SimpleBoard (now JoomlaBoard).

[ormuz]

They use a software (smf) who don't have the same interpretation as they have from the license!

Soo... Joomla! why u use SMF? (who cares... its just a question)

btw...
In this page joomla use a module to display the forum posts... if smf users can't use the bridge to joomla why can joomla use smf?...

[Orstio]

The GPL concern is about distribution of software, not about usage of any software.

Joomla can use whatever forum software they choose.  That says absolutely nothing about the license under which they distribute their own software, or how they choose to enforce that license.

[Kindred]

and ormuz, anyone who uses SMF also can use SSI functions. You don't need a bridge to do that.

[b.IT]

You can't really do a bridge client-side.

on the login-page of system A have an invisibly loaded login page for system B  in an iframe. use javascript to send the content of the input-boxes to both forms to get a cookie for both systems.

modify the register & user-administration scripts of both systems to update both databases (or use one user-table and views to translate the db-structure). do not use common scripts - have the package split in two parts under different licenses.

integration done the hard way, not very elegant, but probably not against the gpl
(IANAL)

[zwaldowski]

So... there's no chance of getting that password bug fixed, is there? 

I don't care anymore, because:  1)  I dislike Joomla and OSM's interpretation and enforcement of their license and 2)  I've already moved to Mambo, which I feel is much better despite third-party developers' feelings toward it and Joomla.

In relation to my first point, this interpretation is stupid and, honestly, un-open-source-like.

In relation to my second point (the 'sorry, we don't support Mambo anymore, move to Joomla attitude' after the simultaneous release of the two wares), I think that attitudes are about to unravel and reverse themselves... maybe more Mambo support in more products (again)?

[eibot]

Please clear one thing, I am currently usign Joomla, SMF 1.1.3 and the bridge. May I continue using this, or do I have to remove this as well before getting sued by someone?

[Deaks]

you should be able to continue using it for now but I would advise looking at something else maybe mambo.

However until you move you will not recieve support regarding the bridge