Mark Jaquith's GPL blog post

[Ryan]

Excellent article by Mark Jaquith expressing his opinions on the matter of the GPL in relation to plugins and themes:
http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/201...-of-wordpress/


The following comment left by James Pearce is the sort of argument I've always had against the logic that you can't create a theme with non-GPL markup:

But isn’t it possible to build a theme that does not violate any of these extra criteria? A static HTML/Javascript page that remotes the loop logic using RSS, for example? If so, “all themes are GPL” is not truly watertight.

Based on Mark's response, it seems he wouldnt' even count that as a theme, which would explain why so many "experts" have been fervently claiming you can't create legally create a non-GPL theme for WordPress - basically they don't consider that a theme at all.

At that point, it isn’t a WordPress theme — it is a standalone RSS-parsing application. You could do that, sure. But it’s a ton of work for an inferior result. You’d be losing a lot of what makes WordPress WordPress, and creating a much higher maintenance burden. At that point, you could just write your own platform, or choose another platform.

[Ryan]

It seems we're not the only people who have thought of this:
http://andy.wordpress.com/2010/07/17...gpl-severance/

[andreasnrb]

I've gone the other way. I no longer believe plugins and themes have to be GPL because they make use of Plugins API etc.
Themes and plugins are not distributed with WordPress, make no use of actual code only function calls, does not modify WordPress code in any way, shape or form.

People should really read this:
The GPL and Derivative Works by University of Washington School of Law
The GPL: Understanding the License that Governs Linux by Matt Asay Director, Linux Business Office &amp; Open Source Review Board<br>
Novell
The best one below:
GPL, legally speaking (PDF) by Lawrence Rosen is attorney for Open Source Initiative

[chipbennett]

I've gone the other way. I no longer believe plugins and themes have to be GPL because they make use of Plugins API etc.
Themes and plugins are not distributed with WordPress, make no use of actual code only function calls, does not modify WordPress code in any way, shape or form.

People should really read this:
The GPL and Derivative Works by University of Washington School of Law
The GPL: Understanding the License that Governs Linux by Matt Asay Director, Linux Business Office &amp; Open Source Review Board<br>
Novell
The best one below:
GPL, legally speaking (PDF) by Lawrence Rosen is attorney for Open Source Initiative

My opinion has shifted similarly to Andreas'. It will take me a while, but I am in the process of writing a blog post that lays out the entirety of my thought process. (And since I'm doing this in a sincere attempt to find the truth, I'm even going to point out the falsifying arguments and assumptions of my own current position.)

But, basically: a key point in my current thinking involves the disparity between the FSF's interpretation of definition of "derivative work" and how actual copyright law (and precedent case law) have defined "derivative work".

[Ryan]

In case there was any confusion, I didn't actually say I believe all themes and plugins need to be GPL licensed. I'm still on the fence there, although Mark's blog post at least swayed me a little more towards that direction than normal.

[WraithKenny]

The "Plugin API" is simply irrelevant. Mark's post does covered that in detail. It's complicated and confusing, but ultimately, arbitrarily defining the boundary of a program as where an API exists is, in the end, just that: arbitrary. There's lots of other points that make the Plugin API argument irrelevant, but I'll skip those here.

What is the "disparity between the FSF's interpretation of definition of 'derivative work' and how actual copyright law (and precedent case law) have defined 'derivative work'?" besides one covering software, and the other traditional writing? I'm actually interested.

[chipbennett]

The "Plugin API" is simply irrelevant. Mark's post does covered that in detail. It's complicated and confusing, but ultimately, arbitrarily defining the boundary of a program as where an API exists is, in the end, just that: arbitrary. There's lots of other points that make the Plugin API argument irrelevant, but I'll skip those here.

You're right, of course - though, with respect to precedent case law, probably not for the reasons you think.

What is the "disparity between the FSF's interpretation of definition of 'derivative work' and how actual copyright law (and precedent case law) have defined 'derivative work'?" besides one covering software, and the other traditional writing? I'm actually interested.

Sorry for the delay, my post is nearly ready to publish. It will be up sometime tonight, and should answer some of these questions.

I'm taking a sincere look, and will appreciate all likewise-sincere comments and criticisms!

[chipbennett]

And here it is: WordPress Themes, GPL, and Copyright Law.

[andreasnrb]

Chips article is a must read. None of the articles regarding themes and GPL comes even close to the research and indepth analysis that Chip has done.
It really is The source at the moment regarding the status of themes/plugins and the GPL.

[Ryan]

Yikes, that's one heck of an article Chip. How much time did you spend working on that?

As soon as a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo pops up my eyes glaze over. What you wrote seems to make sense though and mostly corresponds with what I've heard from legal experts previously.

I wonder how many people are going to jump on you as an anti-GPL leach now? Stupid people abound on the interwebz and I'm sure some of them will skip your intro. pointing out that you are actually a proponent of the GPL and that this is just a debate about the legal side of things, nothing to do with morals or ethics.