I work for a Germany based software company specialized in eCommerce solutions. In the near future we intend to build a system based on nopCommerce (either as a whole derivation or as extensions/plugins while keeping the core intact... don't know yet in this early stage). Why? Because we don't want to reinvent the wheel anymore and nopCommerce is a fantastic piece of software with well-structured code and tons of features.
We plan to redesign the admin section incorporating the Kendo UI components, build a theming engine with several ready-to-use, configurable themes (config for colors, typo, banner, logo, placements etc.). Further we have to implement some payment plugins specific to the german market and meet some juristical requirements specific for germany, which are not given in nopCommerce at this moment (e.g. the so-called PAnGV, Trusted-Shops Certificate etc.). Some of this work we would provide as contributions to the nopCommerce core, if there is general interested of course.
Of course we want to monetarize our work, and here things get complicated: We sell proprietary software since 15 years now, so open-source is a rather new concept for us. Threfefore I apologize in advance if my concern sounds 'newbie' to you. From what I understood so far, GPLv2 permits commercial distribution of derived work, as long the derived work is also under the same license. But this actually means, our customer could give away the program and our modified source to anyone for free. Am I correct or did I miss something here?!
I stumbled upon a system called 'shopXpert' which actually gets sold. How does they handle the licensing issue? Do they reveal their sources?
I'm sorry, but I relly read TONS of docs and discussions about GPLv2, but I really am confused about the fine details of monetarizing (besides most infos are contrary). So I'm kindly asking ;-) Could you please enlighten me if our plans comply with your license requirements so we can start digging into nop...
Thanks in advance