How can we replace the CKEditor4 package, which uses the GPL license?

Submitted by agroves on Sat, 06/12/2021 - 00:50
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Hi all,

The CKEditor4 (text editor purification) package uses the GPL license, which means that all of H5P requires GPL. If I'm not mistaken, moving to 100% MIT license has been discussed for some time, so I'm wondering if there is an update on that.

Is there maybe something blocking the replacement of CKEditor4? Is there a way that we can help get it unblocked?

Thanks.

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otacke's picture

otacke

Sat, 06/12/2021 - 22:04

Hi Amy!

I am neither a lawyer, nor can I speak on behalf of the H5P core team. But I just checked the CKEditor 4 repository and there the license document says:

Licensed under the terms of any of the following licenses at your choice:

  • GNU General Public License Version 2 or later [...]

  • GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 or later [...]

  • Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 or later [...] 

As far as I can see in the repository of the H5P editor core, the H5P core team didn't choose any but left the copyright document as is - so I assume you could consider it being MPL which it allows the integration of code into other codebases. You'll just have to keep the CKEditor itself code under MPL. But, again, I am not a lawyer and may be completely wrong here.

Best,

Oliver

p. s.: I'd definitely prefer MIT anyway.

agroves

Fri, 06/18/2021 - 18:49

Ultimately we need to avoid any of these "copy left" licenses. The rest of the project is under MIT from what I can tell, and I think I read in the posts from a long time ago that getting away from GPL was in plan. But I haven't seen any update since then.

serettig's picture

serettig

Fri, 06/18/2021 - 17:48

As far as I know some of the XSS protection code comes from an external source and is also GPL.