Recently Robert asked that we "Suggest A Topic For Drupal For NG Os Tue, 24/03/2009 - 10:27" ( http://www.drupal.org.uk/suggest-topic-drupal...) and I made some suggestions including CiviCRM. Another person jumped into the thread with a distraction about the AGPL. I asked for clarification and was treated to an unattributed replay of one of the most contentious conditions of that license. Whether condition 13 is really "intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program" (reference follows) or is a massive imposition has been (over) thoroughly hashed out elsewhere. So rather than mucking up Robert's attempt at garnering constructive ideas for future meetings I shall reply here:- For those who are wondering where this is coming from, you (or your lawyer) may like to view GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3, 19 November 2007 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) It would be unprofessional not to draw one's employer's or client's notice to such legal requirements as license terms. However, and to avoid unnecessary FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) the wider picture in this case is best taken from CiviCRM's web site. "CiviCRM Licensing" (http://civicrm.org/licensing) includes references to all the 'legalese' you could want, plus a helpful comment from their "project attorney" wherein he excludes from the broad swathe of paragraph 13, "code snippets" (which surely includes a few amendments of INVITED entry in a "civicrm.settings.php" file - the example given in earlier concern expressed). The attorney continues, as indeed do the links on that web page, to outline how something must be "expressive creativity", require a copyright statement, and otherwise be non-trivial, before such considerations are worth bringing to bear. In the case of software such creativity refers to programming, and that involved in the way the package works. It does not refer to the ingenuity and customisation which a particular user applies to the package - and which service the package is designed to provide (that is creativity of a different type). For more specific understanding of the legal 'mind' of CiviCRM's copyright holders, take even a cursory look at how CiviCRM have implemented the package in consideration of both the advertising value and legal aspects of paragraph 13 (apologies, I can't give you a live link for this, and my development system is hidden away from public view). At the bottom of each page there are four links: labelled the Affero license, source code, bug reports, and online documentation. The first is the link above. The latter two are for user convenience. The 'source code' link completes the licensing requirement by presenting the CiviCRM download page. 1 their download page and thus an authoritative (reliable) copy of the s/w being 'made available' 2 not a link to your own server which would offer a copy of what you have configured and/or built-up on your site or implementation of CiviCRM - which would have to include database passwords, directories outside of the web-accessible tree, the contents of your CRM database, etc!!!??? Given that any purported prosecution would have to be launched by CiviCRM, and that they themselves have installed that link, as well as volunteering the above-mentioned advice in a bid to remove Affero-associated FUD and hysteria, it remains only for us to do our homework... 1 I am not associated with CiviCRM other than in assessing its use for client applications 2 I am not a lawyer but have decades of IT (and contract) experience and cut my teeth on the famous FUD by which IBM ran the computer world for quite some time - and ultimately failed 3 I doubt that DrupalLondon/UK was/is set up to provide legal advice 4 Legal advice is unlikely to be given in generalities. Lawyers need specific situations ("implementations" in IT terminology) upon which to base their opinions 5 none of this discussion precludes CiviCRM from being a topic worth DrupalLondon's attention