====== What License is DokuWiki Under? =======

:?: I'm a little bit confused about the license of [[wiki:DokuWiki]]. Can I use it on a commercial website?

The short answer is yes. But let's explain it a little bit: in fact there are two licenses. One for the //software// called DokuWiki and one for the //content// in my DokuWiki installation at [[http://wiki.splitbrain.org/|wiki.splitbrain.org]].
:!: The one that is probably the one you are interested in, is the one for the //software//. It's the **GNU General Public License** (or shorter: GPL). This means (simply spoken):

You get some rights:

  - You get the software and the sourcecode
  - You are allowed to use the software in any way you like
  - You are allowed to change the sources to your needs

But you have to accept these terms:

  - There are __no guarantees__ of any kind - if it breaks anything for you then it's your problem ((of course you can kindly ask for help ;-)))
  - If you want to redistribute the software you need to do this under the terms of the GPL, which means you have to redistribute the full sourcecode (including your modifications) too.
  - You may __not__ redistribute the software and say you wrote it all yourself - but that is pretty obvious anyway isn't it?

:!: The second license applies to all the //content// which is created here in the DokuWiki at [[http://wiki.splitbrain.org/|wiki.splitbrain.org]]. It is licensed under the **Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike license** (abbreviation: CC-BY-NC-SA). Again a simple explanation:

Again you get some rights:

  - You may of course read the content
  - You may change the content
  - You may redistribute the content in its original or changed form

If you agree to the terms:

  - If you redistribute you have to do it under the same terms
  - You may __not__ use the content commercially (eg. printing a book and sell it)
  - If you redistribute the content you have to say who the original author is - In the case of this wiki it's enough to give the originating URL and name the author as //DokuWiki Community//

For further information about the licenses see

  * [[http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html|Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL]]
  * [[http://creativecommons.org/learn/|Creative Commons - learn more]]