Is Joomla Legal?

Posted on September 3, 2007
Filed Under Design |

Joomla Open Source at its finest

It was an interesting question when a Realtor asked me why such a powerful feature rich product would not cost her any money, “is that legal”. Open Source is one of those things that is difficult to explain in a way that is convincing enough to be taken serious and even more difficult is it when the Open Source is a freely available product like Joomla. Since the question caught me off guard I really almost fumbled with an answer that was more hazardous than her interpretation that if software applications are free they must be junk or stolen.

I’m a real fan of the work done by Bryan Ruby over on his CMSReport.com site and frequent the posts and writings sometimes for no other reason than to explore possible paradigms (perspectives) about CMS applications. Its interesting that in all the years that CMS professionals have been writing about these applications, only a few have adequately articulated the “spirit” for lack of a better term, regarding Open Source GNU GPL applications. How is it conceivable that something with such high quality can be motivated in the absence of money? Nothing in life operates without money and many things function deliberately broken with profit as the motive. But after spending more than 45 minutes in Bryan’s site I realized that the best answer isn’t the one that comes in a single liner or brief statement. The scope is as broad and complex as any would expect regarding technology. That being said, I believe its the short answers that should be avoided and taken with a grain of salt. There is too much to summarize so abruptly.

But if I had to give a brief answer again to questions like; “if its so good why is it free”? I’d begin quite honestly by explaining that on a global level, people make up the motive and with each one that motive is unique and different which does an amazing thing in fostering the kinds of expertise that bring about the development of such open source applications. People are social animals and when they get together as a team, part of something, the lure can be addictive and reward paid in a way that is vastly more personal and motivating than cash. Praise, recognition and accomplishment are behind many lofty motives.

I could easily just explain the benefits in a long checklist of comparative examples how open source measures up against its commercial and proprietary counterparts. But thats been done to death. Open Source is an open community more often than not with an open invitation for experts to contribute to a solution for a problem(s) that many share. Its been said that necessity is the mother of invention and that being true many of histories greatest inventions and contributions we all benefit from began with a similar spirit to open source software. It may not sound glamorous or worthy of a headline but tried and true, its demonstrated over and over again as each example is explored behind so many high quality gnu applications like Joomla.

Later this month, I’ll write about a nice collection of interesting facts I uncovered after doing a great deal of detective work over the past few weeks exploring open source from the perspective of many opposing questions. The planned future posts about this are part of a series really, I’ll have a few articles as contributions to other blogs I write for where I’m a guest writer but promise to keep you aware them as I go.

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2 Comments so far
  1. Laura Bergells September 4, 2007 9:11 am

    Heh. Good title, “Is Joomla Legal?”.

    Earlier this year, a web developer accused me of being a communist for recommending Joomla! to a client.

    Seriously. A communist!

    Why is open source such a threat to some?

  2. Jared Ritchey September 4, 2007 11:59 am

    Yeah I’ve had dozens of people behave the same way. I think the threat is really centered around one simple fundamental.

    If you were in a position to tell your client that you have exclusive and proprietary software you have the power to lock them in and make them dependent on you. That means MEAL TICKET.


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