"Mahara": "Open Source Washing" project (GPL with paying code access)

Offtopic
1

I “randomly” landed on the web page of the “Mahara” web software, a sort of Moodle specialized in making students to collect and showcase their achivements and projects.

The odd is that downloading/self-hosting the software and even browsing the git repository is restricted to subscription holders, as explained on this page..

Isn’t this in line with the GPL licence / open-source arrangement? I have seen in the past dual licences, but the core of the software was still available in source format to the public…

2

All the download / contribute / get involved links pass through the “reserved” gitlab repository.. and they write:

Why is Mahara open source?

There are several related reasons, not in any order of importance.

  • […]
  • The Mahara team strongly believes in open source not only for philosophical reasons but as the best development methodology for us to harness different ideas, approaches and resource efforts. While Mahara started in New Zealand, we appreciate the wide range of contexts and innovations in the ePortfolio and personal learning environment space. We welcome development input and collaborations from throughout the world with Mahara Partners and the broader community of users. You can get involved in Mahara in many ways and can ask and answer questions in the forums.
  • […]

Asking LLM about it:

Why updated source code is hard to find online

  1. Enterprise Terms & Contractual Pressure: While the GPL allows subscribers to share the code, Catalyst IT’s commercial subscription agreements often include terms stating that if an institution leaks or redistributes the paid releases, Catalyst may terminate their support contract. Universities and large organizations rarely want to risk their enterprise support to re-host the zip file.

Good Julia is not like that :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

3

Strictly speaking, GPL guarantees frredom to study, modify and distribute modified code for legal owners of the software. So, paywalling the source code per se is not a GPL violation.

However, the 4 essentials freedoms of GPL are:

  1. Freedom 0: Run the program for any purpose you want.
  2. Freedom 1: Study how the program works and change it to do what you want.
  3. Freedom 2: Share and redistribute copies to help other people.
  4. Freedom 3: Distribute copies of your changed versions to others.

If you are not allowed to distribute the source, it is suspicious.