Yesterday on the Wordpress blog, Matt Mullenweg created quite a stir amongst the wordpress developer community with his post Themes are GPL, too. Matt called in the help of the Software Freedom Law Center, experts on the GPL, to analyze the Wordpress software and it’s relationship to components and they responded with this…
 |
PHP in WordPress themes must be GPL, artwork and CSS may be but are not required. |
That’s a hefty blow to commercial Wordpress plugin developers because the inclusive nature of the GPL in relationship to Wordpress as a core software prevents developers from commercially licensing their work. For those who have been developing Wordpress hacks and plugins as “open source” to benefit the community without personal profit, it’s business as usual.
As with the Linux OS, lines are drawn between commercial and open source developers. Some bloggers like Jon Stahl and Hacker Visions agree with Wordpress and Mullenweg’s stance while others such as Jeffery McManus and Sadish Balla feel Wordpress should have some sort of framework in place to support commercial developers.
The folks at ThemLab made light that the Commercial WordPress Theme Directory Launches and provided a link to the directory where the following blurb can be found :
|
While our directory is full of fantastic themes, sometimes people want to use something that they know has support behind it, and don’t mind paying for that. Contrary to popular belief, GPL doesn’t say that everything must be zero-cost, just that when you receive the software or theme that it not restrict your freedoms in how you use it. |
That statement does rub me the wrong way because it essentially reduces developers to support staff over licensing issues, particularly GPL vs. commercial. However, as far as Wordpress is concerned, I would never bother to write commercial add-ons for any GPL software in the first place. Free software is meant to be free.
That’s just my opinion - What’s yours ?
I believe most people who choose the GPL well know what that choice entails. It’s their choice, just like it’s my choice to keep most of my code closed. I don’t mind their choice, and I’ll simply avoid using their code. I’m not sure it warrants much discussion since people who go with the GPL are often motivated by ethical arguments, and you can’t really argue with that.
I don’t feel “free” when dealing with GPL software. I feel constrained and like I’m walking on eggshells. As a programmer, I find that GPL is a little scary. I don’t even want to look at a lot of GPL code for fear a technique found its way into my own code.
The subtleties of how the license applies, as you outline well, keep me from using GPL software when working for companies, etc., that don’t want their work to be under GPL. It’s too “dangerous.”
Bravo for Wordpress for keepinf free software free.
When i use the GPL software i dont think much more about the security privacy & THAT IS THE MY STYLE OF USING THE SOFTWARE OF THE GPL!
Odd situation - the platform itself is open source, but the visual representations may not be. I can see the GPL rules extending to this since a theme is a creative representation, while Wordpress itself is just the toolset/means to create that representation (kind of like an artist and a painting - the brushes, paints, and tools are separate from the creative expression itself).
Hi,
I have to openly admit that I do not agree with this decision one bit. It is just idiotic, and kills the entire commercial theme market.
From now on, the only way to get a premium theme is to buy the total rights to it - as the GPL IMHO grants you the right to do WTF you please with it. This means that the designer must assume one sale, and done…
But: I have to admit that I am generally VERY angry and unhappy with the direction Wordpress has taken recently. WP 2.8 completely f%%ed up my theme on my sites….something which never happened before.
It went downwards before with their idiotic AJAX interface - while it looks nice, it has caused nothing but eekers for me (mobile browsers, anyone?).
I think that we are all here for business - and for this, we need accountability. WordPress IMHO no longer gives that!
All the best
Tam Hanna
(once happy WP user with 7 sites - will switch soon)
P.S. I have subscribed here. If anyone of you knows about a _COMMERCIAL_ (aka an entity I can sue) CMS which is good and costs reasonable, let me know!
@Adam + @Tam - I hear what you’re saying. As somebody who has played guitar professionally for years, it would be like Gibson or Fender saying they have copyright over my music because I used their instrument to create it.
What strikes me as odd is that GPL originally comes from the Linux/Unix community. Companies like Red Hat have created commercial versions of Linux and distributed them for years. It’s not like theme designers are trying to market a commercial version of Wordpress. They’re extending, or as Adam said, using a tool kit to create.
Like Tan, I have also become very frustrated with the newer versions of Wordpress. Since WP 2.1, the designers have totally made the dashboard less useful and the software has become bloated with unnecessary features.
An old saying comes to mind, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Hi Dave,
-
@Adam + @Tam - I hear what you’re saying. As somebody who has played guitar professionally for years, it would be like Gibson or Fender saying they have copyright over my music because I used their instrument to create it.
-
Its much worse. Imagine Gibson declaring that you can no longer strum the guitar but must spin it to produce tunes…ah, and you need to buy new speakers, plectrums and so on.
I am a person who lives by no change. WordPress forces me to change ALL THE F**EN time - thereby wasting my time. I am a darn blogger, not a theme designer or system maintainer or whatever.
When updating WP, I don’t want to have to update my theme because some stupid API call was changed and now produces weird output like this one:
-
« Previous Page — « Previous Entries | Next Entries » — Next Page »
-
My job is to BLOG. Not to f%%% fix WordPress…
All the best
Tam Hanna
I believe the themes and plugins should be licensed completely separate from the framework itself allowing developers to license their work anyway they choose.
having the GPL is just like you are having a friend which can make your work ease !it is really a great tool!