[thelist] Open Source and XML Formats

Ray Hill ray at opengrid.com
Wed Oct 3 15:22:54 CDT 2001


I'm in the process of designing a PHP/MySQL content management tool (much
like what Greg is describing), which I plan to make available as open source
once it is completed.  But my understanding of the various licensing issues
is rudimentary, so I was hoping that someone out there might be able to
clarify a point for me.

The primary point of this project is to create a UI template builder that
will allow entry-level folks to do the basics in a GUI environment, while
still allowing more advanced folks to retain full control over the resulting
HTML.  By combining these look-and-feel templates with different logic
modules, I'm hoping to provide a platform through which existing open source
projects, which have fantastic functionality but only so-so UIs, can be
repurposed so that the non-technical user can easily create instances of
those projects on their site, with a consistent look and feel.  And by
allowing the templates to be saved in an XML format, it would also allow
other tools to leverage that same logic.

My quanrdy is this.  The content management system will almost necessarily
have to be under GPL license, since the open source tools I plan to roll
into it later are all GPL tools.  But if I create the tool under GPL, does
that extend to the XML format that the templates are saved into, as well?
Ideally, I'd love for other content management tools to be able to use these
templates to generate their look and feel, and if that XML format is under
GPL then it prevents off-the-shelf products and web site services like
Geocities or Tripod from being able to use the format, then that would be a
very bad thing.

So does the GPL cover just the code behind the site, or does it also somehow
extend to the XML format that is output by the system?  In order to pull
this off, would I need to build the template creator separately, under the
Lesser GPL, and make the content management bit under GPL, so that I can
still roll other GPL tools into the content manager, but anyone at all could
still use the template bits?

Any licensing clarifications I could get would be greatly appreciated!

--ray






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