OIO Is GPL Or Not?

[Otto]

And your point is flawed because it is then the enduser that creates a derivative work in the ram etc on their server when they run WordPress if we go by your reasoning. The plugin dev does not create a derivative work. It is then only created when run jointly on a server.

The plugin dev creates a device designed to create a derivative work by its very nature. This is itself derivative.

Any other reasoning is unsane.

Your reasoning would make non-GPL libraries part of WP core also.

No, because they're not derivatives of the core. Quite the opposite, although in that case they have public APIs and standards designed specifically to allow that sort of thing. Common Gateway Interface and similar.

There is a notable difference when you design a product specifically to allow anything to hook into it and when you design it merely to be able to load other code.

WordPress does have a public API, but it does not have a plugin API. This makes all the difference.

[chipbennett]

The plugin dev creates a device designed to create a derivative work by its very nature. This is itself derivative.

Any other reasoning is unsane.

Copyright is a legal concept. In that legal concept, creating a device designed to create a derivative work is not, by its very nature a derivative work. A derivative work requires incorporation, in some concrete form, of copyrightable content of a protected work in another work.

If a plugin does not incorporate, in some concrete form, copyrightable content from WordPress core, then it simply is not derivative.

When it is combined with WordPress, it might (and probably would) at that point be considered a combined work.

But of course, the GPL doesn't actually address combined works.

[QUOTE]

No, because they're not derivatives of the core. Quite the opposite, although in that case they have public APIs and standards designed specifically to allow that sort of thing. Common Gateway Interface and similar.

There is a notable difference when you design a product specifically to allow anything to hook into it and when you design it merely to be able to load other code.

To the courts, there is no such difference. That programmers differentiate between methods of interoperability is completely irrelevant to what the courts determine to be copyrightable content of a protected work. Functional information required for interoperability, regardless of the manner of interoperability, is still just functional information, and as such is not copyrightable.

WordPress does have a public API, but it does not have a plugin API. This makes all the difference.

The Copyright Act and precedent case law simply do not care if the functional information required for interoperability are considered by the copyright holder to be "public" or "private". Such designations are legally moot. Functional information is not copyrightable, period.

So, the courts will not care that WordPress doesn't consider the "plugin API" to be public. Whether the functional information is presented as an API or not, it's still not copyrightable, and its use does not cause a follow-on work to become derivative.

It is not the courts that will have to change their opinion to match that of programmers; rather, it is programmers who must change their understanding of Copyright Law, in order to understand how to apply it properly to software.

[Jeffro]

I've decided not to write a review about OIO until it becomes better established that it's GPL compatible.

[andreasnrb]

I've decided not to write a review about OIO until it becomes better established that it's GPL compatible.

Its is perfectly GPL compatible. Just check the GNU GPL FAQ.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-lice...l#FSWithNFLibs
But all to his own.

[MiroslavGlavic]

I don't like these plugins/themes that are "half gpl" and "half propietary/non-gpl".

[brandingdavid]

I love how he has to avoid reviewing something just because he's afraid of the consequences. Makes me laugh my butt off.

[chipbennett]

Its is perfectly GPL compatible. Just check the GNU GPL FAQ.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-lice...l#FSWithNFLibs
But all to his own.

Indeed. Everyone who's commented here has agreed that OIO is fully GPL-compliant. But, like I said: Jeff needs to follow his conscience.