Open Source Licensing for .Net Portal Frameworks
I am currently casting about for at open source web portal frameworks written in .Net. I would like my first concern to be the architecture of the UI plug-in modules, security providers, and data models. Unfortunately, it looks like my first concern must first be the license model of the software. To be fair, I am looking to embed this software in a for-profit, redistributable, and re-branded application.
There is actually very little to complain about with free software even if it is free like a puppy.
So, what license is the most conducive to an embedding scenario? I don’t know. I will have to get someone in legal to start to plow through these things, I think. Any feedback on your experiences would be most appreciated.
| Portal Framework | License Information |
| DotNetNuke | FreeBSD |
| Rainbow Portal | GNU General Public License (GPL) |
| Mojo | Common Public License (CPL) |
| Umbraco | MIT License |
Any other frameworks you suggest, by the way?
1 for Cuyahoga http://www.cuyahoga-project.org/
BSD and MIT style licenses are best for your purpose – GPL and derived license styles are more or less incompatible.
But always remember to check the whole license. In umbraco, the framework is licensed under MIT, but the content management UI is not open source but freeware. The license clearly states that you’re NOT allowed to re-brand and distribute the UI modified without a commercial license and as such umbraco is excluded:
http://umbraco.org/license
Hope this helps and good luck!
Niels / umbraco
Thank you for the clarification. Good one 🙂