Shut out of the community if not GPL?

[AutoBlogged]

The LGPL license would work well as a bridge, since it is GPL compatible but allows other code to call it as a library. The plugin framework I am building will be using that.

...It would be a shame if WordPress did not.

As has been mentioned here already, to WordPress leadership it isn't about what is legal, it is about what they goes.

[Elpie]

As has been mentioned here already, to WordPress leadership it isn't about what is legal, it is about what they goes.

That's the same in any open source community. The decision plugin authors have to make is whether they go GPL all the way or release a bridge under GPL and a proprietary plugin separately to work with the bridge.

The WordPress community has gone along with Matt's opinion for so long now that I can't see any changes to the GPL coming anytime soon so developers need to either toe the party line or seek other ways for promoting their work. It's not exactly shutting people out of the community but it is shutting down advertising and promotional opportunities.

[MiroslavGlavic]

Every community has rules. You are essentially coming into the community and wanting your own way.

I think I posted this part before: No one is putting a gun to your head to put it on extend. End of story. You can bla bla bla all you want.

Even when you get a driver's license, it is qute common to have a "don't drink and drive", you are essentially going to the license office and saying "I want to drink 3 bottles of tequila and get my license".

[that girl again]

I'm just wondering whether it's good for the community to be quite so hostile towards people who, after all, don't always have complete freedom of choice about what licence they use (e.g. theme developers using CC-licenced icons, plugin developers using non-GPL libraries). I mean, refusing to accept advertising from them in case it upsets Automattic? Flaming them whenever they dare to post anywhere? Why should you care? If you don't believe themes should be CC-licenced, cool, don't use them. If you don't believe in charging money for software, fine, don't buy it. But who are you to tell other people that they can't? Some people think the open-source movement is about freedom, and others think it's about imposing their choices on everyone else because they know best. Sadly the Wordpress community has always fallen into the latter group. If these guys had been around in the nineteenth century they'd have been running around Africa converting the heathen. I'm not even joking.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you let people participate fully in the community rather than shunning them for trying to make money, then your chances are a lot better they'll end up drinking the GPL kool-aid of their own accord and become another happy little zealot. If you exclude and attack them, on the other hand, you just alienated another potential contributor and made yourselves look slightly silly in the process. WP is no longer just a hobby project created by open-source geeks for other open-source geeks. If you're sad about that, there are plenty of geek hobby projects which would love to have you.

[Elpie]

I'm just wondering whether it's good for the community to be quite so hostile towards people who, after all, don't always have complete freedom of choice about what licence they use (e.g. theme developers using CC-licenced icons, plugin developers using non-GPL libraries). I mean, refusing to accept advertising from them in case it upsets Automattic? Flaming them whenever they dare to post anywhere? Why should you care? If you don't believe themes should be CC-licenced, cool, don't use them. If you don't believe in charging money for software, fine, don't buy it.

Everyone has freedom of choice over what they use in their code. Nobody forces developers to use proprietary code - the choice is theirs. If they choose not to use GPL-compatible code then they should be aware that some people will be very vocal with their disapproval. Automattic and other developers have the right to enforce their GPL license.

None of this has anything to do with charging money. GPL code can be sold, just the same as any other software. The only issue is with the license and its compatibility with the GPL.

[andreasnrb]

Everyone has freedom of choice over what they use in their code. Nobody forces developers to use proprietary code - the choice is theirs. If they choose not to use GPL-compatible code then they should be aware that some people will be very vocal with their disapproval. Automattic and other developers have the right to enforce their GPL license.

None of this has anything to do with charging money. GPL code can be sold, just the same as any other software. The only issue is with the license and its compatibility with the GPL.

Of course they have a choice but the thing thats discussed here and elsewhere is the attitude towards the "heretics".
Like you write, "they" have a right to be vocal, but thats not the same as their vulgarities should be accepted within the community.
What should be the guiding principle is if a product is good or not. Not if the company making it adhere to Matts and the lead devs ideological decree.
Celebrate good stuff, ignore or warn about bad stuff.

[AutoBlogged]

Just to be clear--and this was never the point of this thread--but AutoBlogged is 100% my own code, and is distributed separately from WordPress, it only interfaces with WordPress as a plugin, and I could just as easily made it interface with a different blogging platform.

I have spent thousands of hours writing and improving this code but because it interacts with WordPress, the community demands that I now have to give away all my exclusive rights to my own work. Under GPL, anyone can take my stuff, make a few changes and then resell it as if it were their own. I didn't use anyone else's code in my product, so why should I be forced to let others take mine?

Nevertheless, shortly after starting this thread I did move AutoBlogged to a GPL license and I haven't seen any negative affects from doing so. I still disagree with the attitude that I don't get to control my own code, but on the business end of things it hasn't made much of a difference.

[Elpie]

Just to be clear--and this was never the point of this thread--but AutoBlogged is 100% my own code, and is distributed separately from WordPress, it only interfaces with WordPress as a plugin, and I could just as easily made it interface with a different blogging platform.

I thought you were going to do a LGPL bridge so your own code would be sufficiently independent. Did you decide not to do that? If so, may I ask why?

I'm really glad your sales are doing okay.

[chipbennett]

EDIT: wrong thread (somehow)

[AutoBlogged]

@Elpie I am building my plugin framework that will server as a LGPL bridge, and it is turning out very cool but still not done. I went ahead and changed AutoBlogged to GPL to have an article I wrote published on a well-known wordpress site because the owner of the site said he would only publish the article if I changed to GPL. I did that and sent him the article but he never did publish it so after a month I ended up putting it on my own blog. (I thought it was a cool article).

I likely will license all my plugins as GPL in the future, but I still want to do the LGPL framework so that others can choose to go with a commercial license if they want to.