Hello All,
We are proposed to begin the development of our new open source social commerce platform using CodeIgniter. Our thoughts are to take CI and modify its core a bit to meet the requirements of our application engine. Does taking codeigniter and modifying its core breach any of the licenses of CI? We will be branding the new application differently as well.

Please share your comments.

Aslong as you don’t claim it to be yours it’s fine.
We all modify the core from time to time to meet our requirements of our projects.

Pretty much what Dennis says.

Here’s a copy of the license, which is refreshingly free from legal speak:
http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/license.html

And by modify the core, I’m sure you mean extend the core, right? Save yourself upgrade nightmares by not changing anything in the system folder.

Really you are not claiming for the same, its OKEY, but please modify it by time to time.

From what i have been reading,for instance,twitter:Dan’s tweet

you are required to indicate quite clearly that you are indeed running your software on codeigniter.

Just read this CodeIgniter tweet

The “Permitted Use” on the CodeIgniter License Agreement the way i see it is a bit restrictive for me.

1.A copy of this license agreement must be included with the distribution.

-The customer expects everything you present to be your own work in the usual arrangement that he/she will claim complete ownership of the product after you get paid.Explaining to the customer of the additional codeigniter licensing notes he/she must be aware of will surely make him seek alternatives.

-I am not against abiding by the codeigniter license covenant but,i am just a bit worried that i may forget to do one of the six things outlined.I know of a lad who makes a living suing people,and that makes me quite nervous,not much,a bit.

Update:I was not sure about the legal consequences of not abiding by the said agreements,so i asked it on stackoverflow.See the Reaction.

Stackoverflow Reaction On Public Licenses

i think there’s been some confusion here. check out this follow up tweet:
http://twitter.com/CodeIgniter/status/12588898706268161

@phpserver, i wouldn’t worry too much if i was you; the license if very non restrictive. as for clients expecting everything to be your own work, that’s just not realistic. tools such as codeigniter, jquery etc massively speed up production time. you could always build these tools yourself, from the ground up. although i’m not so sure your clients would be willing to foot the bill for the extra development time

You can include CodeIgniter in your open-source development just make sure you leave the CodeIgniter LICENSE in place and mention it somewhere in the credits.

Nobody is going to chase you legally for anything, the worst I got when I forgot the LICENSE file was an joke tweet from one of the developers. It’s fine, go ahead

Thanks for clearing that up Phil and Eoin.I once abandoned a project i set out to code in codeigniter,i was a little apprehensive about the licensing at the time.I guess i was expecting GPL 2 or 3,something i am used to and understand fully.