GPL and Ethics

[chipbennett]

That is not what the Invisible Pink Unicorn means. The IPU is used to show the absurdity of an argument. You have given no actual support for your assertions beyond "I'm right and this random book/person/definition from somewhere agrees with me". It's an appeal to authority, without any actual substantive argument behind it.

Uh, no. Nice try, though.

When the matter under debate is "what is the meaning of a 'right'" (and further, "is there a differentiation between a moral right and a legal right"), then it is entirely appropriate to cite a dictionary as a means of supporting one's argument.

In matters of definition, a dictionary is not some "random book/person/definition from somewhere". It is the standard.

Basically, you claim you have proven your argument and ask me to disprove it, when you have in fact done no such thing.

No. I provided historical, philosophical, and etymological support for my argument. With respect to the latter, which is the most objective, I quoted the dictionary. You ignored it. That you ignored my argument does not negate it.

Your argument is not falsifiable because there is no substance behind it which can be falsified.

Actually, it is quite falsifiable. I have provided a definition, with source cited. Find and cite your own source that supports your argument.

You have given no logical basis for your claims. I have given the basis for mine, in a reasonable manner. I can not go any further, as I *have* proven my argument. Twice.

No, you haven't. Saying "I don't believe that there is a difference between a moral and a legal right" does not inherently prove your argument.

Because you have no ability to enforce any such thing. Therefore it is meaningless.

Of course it can be enforced. Matt managed to enforce his "themes must be 100% GPL" community standard, without much resistance at all. An objective, mutually beneficial community code could likewise be enforced.

Actually, it's silly for the Ubuntu community as well, just not as much so. See, "community" is not limited to "members of a specific website". They go on about arbitration and such, but if I were to violate their silly standards, well, then I can do so and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.

See, all you can control is that which you actually have control over. If somebody chooses to violate your "code" on their own site, then a) you can't stop them and b) they're still in your "community".

Ubuntu.com has mailing lists and forums and is a fairly central operation. If somebody acts like a jerk, you can block their account. Easy.

WordPress, by its very nature, is a multi-site operation. Yes, there's wordpress.org and that is controlled, but there's hundreds, thousands of other sites talking about WordPress. It's arguable that the majority of WP related information is not on wordpress.org at all. And yet people who post this information are part of the greater "community".

So how do you enforce your code? If somebody decides to violate your code on their own site, what do you do about it? Talk smack about them? How is that any different from what happens now?

The only thing that will happen from created a 'code' is that you create yet another document for people to argue about. Actual accomplishment: zero.

Your thinking is too pessimistic and narrow-minded. If such thinking is all you have to contribute to the ideas being discussed in this thread, I would ask that you refrain from continuing to involve yourself.

You have expressed your disagreement with such ideas. Fair enough.

Now, please leave well-enough alone, and let us discuss them.

[ifranky]

See, all you can control is that which you actually have control over. If somebody chooses to violate your "code" on their own site, then a) you can't stop them and b) they're still in your "community".

Isn't this exactly what makes the GPL nice? Or as Matt always says: "If someone wants to fork it, feel free. There would be no WP without fork/GPL."

Of course it can be enforced. Matt managed to enforce his "themes must be 100% GPL" community standard, without much resistance at all. An objective, mutually beneficial community code could likewise be enforced.

Wrong. Matt managed to enforce the themes GPL on wordpress.org and a majority of designers waved the 'Me too' flag. But one of the most popular premium themes is NOT GPL.

Thesis I mean of course. Technically you could of course go ahead and grab the theme, its option panel and use it for every GPL theme out there because it is based on WordPress, uses certain WordPress hooks (the functions.php structure alone and admin backend are enough of WP structure) which are GPL and thus requires Thesis to use the GPL (I bet the EFF would back this up). But do the guys at DIYThemes care? Nope. Can Matt block this or enforce the GPL here? Nope.
More even, has the EFF been able to enforce 100% GPL themes? See Thesis.

Let's see what happens with the merge in 3.0. Let's see if WPMUDev forks WPMU. Would it make sense for them? I can not say that right now but they do have a huge community of people who have invested for plugins going. That community will probably continue to trust WPMUDev even if they decide to fork (and probably rename).
And if they do, there's nothing that Matt can do about. Would they be able to rewrite WPMU and release under another license? Probably, but I am no contract lawyer.

[Ryan]

... you could of course go ahead and grab the theme, its option panel and use it for every GPL theme out there because it is based on WordPress, uses certain WordPress hooks (the functions.php structure alone and admin backend are enough of WP structure) which are GPL and thus requires Thesis to use the GPL

No you couldn't. Even if something is violating the GPL license, it does not mean that software is necessarily GPL. If it has a non-GPL license applied to it then it is not GPL. The copyright holder of the GPL code could however take legal action against that violation, but you can't just go claiming someone elses code is GPL because they're violating the license. You could of course use the code which they've have used from other GPL projects, but that's a separate issue since it is code from the other project you are using, not the code which was written directly for the GPL violating software.

Or at least that's what a copyright specialist told me. I'm not an expert on such things.

[ifranky]

Ryan, you are right. That is why I added the EFF to the example.

In this example, of course you would need WP/Automattic to support your case but I think if someone would go that route and end up in trouble Matt would be the first one to help out. Remember that Automattic requested the EFF to define the legal license conditions.

Anyway... very broad hypothesis and I would not recommend anyone to go that path either as it's bad manners.

[Ryan]

That still doesn't require anything to be GPL, it just means that anyone who uses GPL code in something with an incompatible license is at risk of someone taking legal action against them. Their own 100% custom code is still not inherently GPL'd just because they're violating the GPL license it just means that they need to remove that GPL code from their software which is an entirely different kettle of fish from their own code needing to be GPL'd. If you use their non-GPL code in your own GPL project without their permission you are just as much in the wrong as they are. You would BOTH be violating copyright in that situation.

[Elpie]

The simple rule-of-thumb is that the original creator of any work is the one who determines how this work may be used. These are usually set down in either a copyright license or in terms and conditions of use.

The GPL is a copyright license. It's up to the owners of GPL licensed code to determine whether derivative work complies or not and they are the only ones who can enforce their license.

This means that anyone who has contributed to WordPress and who believes their copyright has been infringed can take action. WordPress is not copyright to Automattic - its copyright to everyone who has added code, even that code that came from b2/cafelog back before the fork.

So, if Thesis or any commercial theme or plugin uses a different license their license must be respected. If the copyright holders of WordPress believe an infringement has taken place they can take action, but nobody else can. Basically, nothing is GPL unless its developer says it is.

[chipbennett]

The simple rule-of-thumb is that the original creator of any work is the one who determines how this work may be used. These are usually set down in either a copyright license or in terms and conditions of use.

The GPL is a copyright license. It's up to the owners of GPL licensed code to determine whether derivative work complies or not and they are the only ones who can enforce their license.

This means that anyone who has contributed to WordPress and who believes their copyright has been infringed can take action. WordPress is not copyright to Automattic - its copyright to everyone who has added code, even that code that came from b2/cafelog back before the fork.

So, if Thesis or any commercial theme or plugin uses a different license their license must be respected. If the copyright holders of WordPress believe an infringement has taken place they can take action, but nobody else can. Basically, nothing is GPL unless its developer says it is.

Yes, and no: Yes, for an original work; No, for a derivative work (at least where US copyright law is involved). The copyright holder of an original work has sole right to make and distribute derivative works. Thus, if the original work is licensed under GPL, then any derivative work must be, also.

(Though, that might have been the point you were making?)

In your scenario with Thesis: if someone infringed the non-GPL Thesis license, and the onwers of Thesis fought them in court, the likely defense would be that Thesis itself is violating the GPL it has inherited, and that Thesis itself is GPL due to that inheritance.

What the court would ultimately determine is anyone's guess. But, it would be equally risky for Thesis to go after infringers as it would be for infringers to infringe in the first place, because in going after them, Thesis could end up having its own license ruled as being in violation of GPL. Given that IANAL, I hesitate to speculate.

[chipbennett]

Isn't this exactly what makes the GPL nice? Or as Matt always says: "If someone wants to fork it, feel free. There would be no WP without fork/GPL."



Wrong. Matt managed to enforce the themes GPL on wordpress.org and a majority of designers waved the 'Me too' flag. But one of the most popular premium themes is NOT GPL.

First, I said "almost", for a reason. Second, that's not really the point I was trying to make, anyway. The point is, the de facto position of the WordPress community is that developers will release their themes as 100% GPL, if they want to be included in the community and receive any sort of recognition.

More importantly, the point is that community standards can be agreed upon and supported (or enforced), in response to the assertion that the notion itself was "silly".

[Ryan]

In your scenario with Thesis: if someone infringed the non-GPL Thesis license, and the onwers of Thesis fought them in court, the likely defense would be that Thesis itself is violating the GPL it has inherited, and that Thesis itself is GPL due to that inheritance.

Nope. You have apparently misinterpreted that side of things.

Nothing is GPL just because it is violating the license. Violating the license just means that they are breaking the law by not placing their own code under that license, which is an entirely different kettle of fish from that code itself being inherently GPL.

What the court would ultimately determine is anyone's guess.

No. This is apparently very clear cut as it that sort of thing is not specific to the GPL, it's just standard copyright violation which has apparently been tested many times before.

If someone is found to be in violation of the GPL license then the GPL code would need to be removed from the theme or be placed under the GPL license. The theme itself however would not necessarily become GPL unless the author chose to make it so ... but they would have to remove it from distribution and presumably might receive associated penalties for breaching the license.

Or at least that's my understanding of it. But I'm 99.99% sure I am correct on this.

[chipbennett]

Nope. You have apparently misinterpreted that side of things.

Nothing is GPL just because it is violating the license. Violating the license just means that they are breaking the law by not placing their own code under that license, which is an entirely different kettle of fish from that code itself being inherently GPL.

Okay, that was poorly written on my part (due probably to lack of sleep).

I'm not trying to imply that anything is GPL "because it is violating [GPL]", but rather that, because that something inherits GPL (assuming that it does, in fact, inherit), then if it is released under a non-GPL-compatible license, then it is in violation.

No. This is apparently very clear cut as it that sort of thing is not specific to the GPL, it's just standard copyright violation which has apparently been tested many times before.

I'm not fully informed on all manner of copyright licenses in use, but I'm not too familiar with other licenses with similar inheritance (aside from other "copyleft" licenses). So, the matter of inheritance is fairly unique to GPL, with respect to court cases involving copyright violation.

If someone is found to be in violation of the GPL license then the GPL code would need to be removed from the theme or be placed under the GPL license. The theme itself however would not necessarily become GPL unless the author chose to make it so ... but they would have to remove it from distribution and presumably might receive associated penalties for breaching the license.

Or at least that's my understanding of it. But I'm 99.99% sure I am correct on this.

I'm pretty sure I agree with this assessment. The only issue I would have with it, is that, if the the code in question is deemed to be a derivative work, and remains in distribution, then it must be GPL. The developer would have the burden of proving that the code constitutes an original, rather than derivative, work in order not to distribute under GPL.

Maybe we're saying the same thing?

Maybe I'm getting too tired to be coherent?