Shinobi CE and Shinobi Pro
The difference between Shinobi Community Edition and Shinobi Professional is subtle but important.
Update : License for the Pro Repository has changed
17/06/2018 3:21 PM
The License for the Pro repository was Creative Commons v.40 now it is the custom Shinobi Open Source EULA.
Shinobi CE (Community Edition)
Shinobi CE is the same code you know and love. It is still under GPLv3. This means you can use it for commercial purposes without permission. You must only make sure the Shinobi logo is always shown and that any copyright notices are always present and never removed.
- Shinobi CE will only be updated for major updates and critical bug fixes. Minor bugs will not be addressed directly to the Shinobi CE repository. They will be applied to Shinobi Pro and then merged to Shinobi CE during the next critical update.
- Support from developers will no longer be provided in the Shinobi CE community chat. This includes me, Moe Alam. Support will only be provided to Shinobi Pro subscribers. Any support that is provided for Shinobi CE is done as a courtesy. The community has become too large and attention now must be prioritized.
- Pull requests will no longer be accepted to Shinobi CE. Pull requests (volunteered code modifications) must be done through the dev branch in the Pro repository.
Shinobi Pro (Professional)
Source Code for Shinobi Pro
License Purchase
Shinobi Pro is by nature the same in code. The main differences are noted below.
- Gets regular updates to the dev branch then when stable it is pushed to master.
- Released under the Shinobi Open Source EULA license.
- Requires the purchase of a license to use in commercial locations.
- One Shinobi Pro subscription will be required for each commercial project or commercial installation
- You can use Shinobi Pro for personal use without a license in non commercial locations.
- Schools are exempt from this even though they are commercial locations
You will be invited to the private communtiy chat when your subscription becomes valid. If your subscription is cancelled you will be removed from the private community chat.
What is commercial use or a commercial location?
- Locations that engage in the buying and selling of goods and services
- Locations that engage in trading of any kind
- Using Shinobi to watch a commercial location for anything other than educational purposes
- Using Shinobi in an application or scheme that results in economical gain - Example : making an isolated account and charging for it
- Commercial installation is when the running copy of Shinobi is being used to do any of the above
- Commercial project is when Shinobi is used as a component for the system or or project
What stops people from just modifying the code to use Pro for free?
Trust. I made this software, tracking usage is not a difficult task. I haven't begun doing it simply by choice. I can monitor the download traffic to Shinobi Pro so if it starts getting crazy with little contribution then things will get legal.
I don't understand, Can I talk about this somewhere?
Sure! You can personal message me on Discord or fill out the Contact form with any concerns you may have.
A few users felt it was their duty to post in the Issues section when it was explicitly stated the issues section is only for bugs with the software, Not personal opinions or general discussion. Please don't do this.
What about previous contributions by other users?
On the official Contributing page, which is actually linked to from the Github Wiki, it is stated :
"All contributed code becomes the property of Shinobi. All contributors give permission to Shinobi and Shinobi developers to use the code however it is seen fit. This is agreed upon when making your first commit."
I have written this as simple as possible. As much as it is a restricting policy it makes maintaining the application simple. The main premise of Shinobi is to keep things simple even when we are handling something complex.
Don't agree with these rules? Then don't commit or make a pull request to remove your code. Understand though that you have already accepted these guidelines and we reserve the right to reject the request if the code is irreplaceable or needed to function, as the code now belongs to Shinobi. Once a "reversion request" is reviewed and accepted we will get into changing the code to not use your specified snippets.
But isn't the code mine, since I wrote it?
In your fork it is, that is what the GPL license actually covers. But due to the notice I put on the website anything that is contributed becomes property of Shinobi.
But you can't just change the License, can you?
Yes I can actually. I could make the program closed source if I wanted to. I hold that right as the only copyright holder. Its just that all previous versions and any version from CE will not be held under any changes to the license. The copy you have with GPLv3 is always going to be GPLv3.
How I feel about all this
I love Shinobi. I want to share it with everyone. That is why I released it for free to begin with... but things have changed. I no longer have the luxury of giving things away. I tried doing a voluntary contribution program but that didn't gain much traction.
In the last week I have had a lot of my time wasted with users trying to negate what I have written on the site and have been berated by those who didn't even contribute. This happened to the guy who made Nodemailer as well. I work hard on this platform. I didn't pick up a fork and start editing it, I started from line 1.
Shinobi Pro is a paid application because I want to give back what I have been given and hopefully more.