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What licensing should custom website themes be released under and can they be sold under that license?
I'm interested in developing themes for the new frontend CMS/E-Commerce modules, however i'd like to know if there is any specific license they need to be distributed under as they would be released as modules of Odoo.
As odoo is released under the GNU Affero General Public License, does this allow for modules (such as themes) to be resold for profit as long as they are distributed with their source code?
Any input on this would be appreciated as I am new to Odoo and am not familiar with the licensing structure.
I asked fabien a related question at the Odoo open day in Belgium this June - "how would website themes be made available for upload to their saas (no external modules allowed) , and could designers charge for them (thereby creating a marketplace for designs) ?"
He said that they were working on the idea of data-only extensions to be allowed on their saas, primarily I understood, to allow different website themes to be used on their saas (I believe there is a theme called zen that they have been working on but I've never tried to install it or activate on one of their saas instances so I don't know if this really shows the idea of a data-only module).
The question of whether a theme as a data-only module could be charged for or whether it has to be published for free should be clarified by asking odoo SA - I believe that they want to encourage theme developers (there is apparently a 'designer' tutorial in this list of documentation - https://www.odoo.com/forum/help-1/question/what-documentation-is-available-for-odoo-60312) but given the recent talk of crowdfunding the production of new themes:-
Over the next 3 months, we will also create three crowd funding
campaigns like the POS one. The campains will be on accounting, MRP and Themes for the CMS.(Email from Fabien 30th June 2014)
it would appear that they are now not quite as ready to throw open the doors to invite designers to come in and build themes that can be charged for.
I think you should ask the question again to fabien in one of the community email discussion groups - the Odoo SA policy on themes needs clearly stating.
Kurt
I'm not familiar with licensing, but this website is helpfull
https://tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-affero-general-public-license-v3-%28agpl-3.0%29
Based on that site, you can use it for commercial.
@Ben, Thanks for that, I had not come across that website yet. I'm trying to figure out how it applies to the customer after the sale of the theme. Most themes i've worked on in the past for Magento/Wordpress, etc. include a few packages of third-party code with it's own licensing applied (eg. Revolution Slider). I'd like to make sure that these licenses stay intact given the GNU Affero GPL and whether or not this third party code needs to be packaged separately in order to keep the licensing in tact. I'm also trying to figure out how the license applies to a customer that purchases the theme/module and whether or not this means they are free to redistribute the theme/module or if a single license per user can be arranged as is the norm with most theme marketplaces for wordpress, magento and other CMS/E-commerce platforms.
Hi, that can be a great idea. I believe that if there were a license model working for plugin, they should be the same for theme, as they are just another front-end type of customisation or add-on on top of another add-on, don't you think? Just thinking out loud here but maybe I am wrong.
Hi Haider, Thanks for the reply. I'm just wondering how module distribution/licensing works with Odoo, as I am not yet familiar with the licensing model as it applies to modules and other non-core code.
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| Asked: 7/9/14, 8:47 AM |
| Seen: 1730 times |
| Last updated: 3/16/15, 8:10 AM |
For anyone that is interested I've put together some very basic instructions on how to get started with local theme development here: https://www.odoo.com/forum/help-1/question/new-bootstrap-theme-on-website-builder-58809