so the web designer for the company that i work for (and oversee the web projects) rebranded a CMS and downlaod manager and sold it to us, which is not a big deal (i've done it myself)

the thing is, he told me and my boss that they developed the scripts, which are not open source, and they both require decent commercial license fees which i highly suspect they didnt pay.

i dont have a problem with the rebranding, like i said i've done it myself (with open source scripts, but still). Him saying that they developed it is like a plumber telling you he designed & built the garbage disposal you're paying him to install.

So do i tell my boss, which will potentially create a giant, giant, giant headache for me probably redoing everything myself, or let it slide?

Just wanna know your guys thoughts on this

I wouldn't tell your boss yet, but maybe let it slide to your web designer that you're 'in the game' yourself, as it were, and that might give him an idea you know what (if anything) is going on in terms of over-charging etc. This might save any unpleasant embarrassment and bad feeling between the parties involved - although you are within your rights to say something to the boss if you want.

If the CMS is GPL and his customized code uses any of the classes/functions/etc. within the code then his code by default has to be open source and he can not tack a commercial license onto it, however he can sell it to you but without any recurring fee's or commissions. At least this is my understanding of this. So what I would do is either A.) Confront him and tell him that you will pay him for his modifications to the code and hours worked but you will not pay for ongoing commercial license fees and you will not abide to any non-GPL license that he tries to tack onto the code, or B.) you can say sure, get the code, play dumb like you did not know before hand and then say, "This code is open source, therefore your commercial license is invalid and I will not pay. Then you have every legal right to use all the code that is now in your possesion.

the CMS is a rebranded Rich Editor, which has a $400 rebranding license that i doubt this guy paid: http://richarea.com/order/

the file manager is a rebranded JUpload which has licenses up to $740, which i also doubt was paid: http://jupload.biz/en_3.html

i'm probably going to just let this slide, mostly because i dont want to create more work for myself

thanks for the input guys