Sticky Please help me understand the GPL for Kunena ... (and removing the "Powered by Kunena" link)

According to the license you are allowed to remove that link, however I don't think you will get any help in doing so as a courtesy to the hard work the volunteers put into this great piece of software.

In this link you will find some more discussion on this matter: www.kunena.org/forum/77-General-Talk-abo...nena?start=20#118224

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Sure, if you want to remove the "powered by" link and you know where to look, you can do that, but please do not expect the Kunena team to endorse this approach for a product that is free, that has cost us thousands of hours to put our time building so that you can have this free, either.

There was an interesting discussion in the Joomla forum a while ago about someone's view that the number of free/non-commercial products listed in the JED was growing. It may be worth having a look at that discussion , just to set the background and the tone behind these kinds of requests.

While you may remove this small thank-you-for-the-work-the-Kunena-team-has-done-for-my-website, it's a little disappointing when people also write into the forum with "I have a problem with Kunena", expect our support for free, only to be greeted (when we visit their site) only to see that they're removed any reference to the fact that the Kunena team put many thousands of hours into building the software that they're using (and may, in fact, be making money from).

stephenoconnor:

sozzled wrote: I will try to keep this brief and simple:

The development team has reviewed this matter. In the past there have been topics giving details about how to remove the "Powered by" link and credits. There has not been a "policy switch": as severdia basically says, the only conditions governing the use of Kunena are covered by the GPL.

In keeping with this policy, the development team has decided to remove all messages and discussions that advise how to remove the "Powered by Kunena" link and credits. Although users can make changes to Kunena - to remove the authorship attribution, for example -the developers strongly discourage those practices as this breaches the GPL.

I think - fair enough - your programmers have spent thousands of hours designing the forum and you make it free and we appreciate that.
The problem for me arises when I am building a site for someone else and they expect me to remove something with 2 potentially confusing links from the site.
I suppose anyone with 2 brain cells will be able to figure out how to remove it using some kind of search so therefore removing the "how to" from the forum probably just complicates it for people.
They will spend more time looking for a solution and possibly then consider switching to vbulletin or some other forum software?
Personally, I don't think leaving in the powered by will result in more donations.
I think making it a commercial extension might result in more donations. :laugh:

It's not right to release this software under GPL and then lay shame on anybody who wishes to exercise their rights under the licensing. A bigger person would show them how to remove the powered by link, thank them for using the software, and provide optimal support in the forums even when they see the link is missing from that users forum. I guess it's just a matter of character. That's the difference between ego and karma.

All that aside, I'm pretty sure the deliberate effort to force users to display the Powered by Kunena link is contradictory to the terms of GPL, all versions. The license is a full package -- you can't just use the parts that suit you and disregard the parts that don't. I hope the Kunena team sees the light and makes the return link optional, like it should be.

www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html