Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

[Jeffro]

So I asked this question on Twitter:

Do you think it would be unethical to just take old themes on the repository, update them and then take the credit?

And a few people have responded that I should be ok as long as I preserve credit to the previous author. My question is, how to properly give credit? For example, I download a theme from the repository, revamp it and reupload it as something I did, how do I give previous credit

[dancole]

If your modifying a work, then the original author should be stated, with his copyright if he has some on the code.

If you take part of a work and insert it into your project, you show document what code isn't yours, its copyright, who you got it from, and where you got it.

I think it would be better to just create original themes. You can always look toward others for ideas. The problem with old themes is that they are likely to have some problems, such as being out of date with Wordpress Standards and be set up poorly. I think it would be easier to make child themes off of a nice theme framework or fork a framework into a regular theme with a different look.

[McGarityDotMe]

The first thing that comes to mind is the Description within the style.css file. When you revise the URL to point to your modified theme, you'll be overwriting the original author's URL -- I'd include that in the Description along with a homage like "Extension of the [THEME NAME] theme originally developed by [AUTHOR]"

If the theme author publicized themselves in the footer.php file, I'd also do the same there.

[McGarityDotMe]

I think it would be better to just create original themes. You can always look toward others for ideas. The problem with old themes is that they are likely to have some problems, such as being out of date with Wordpress Standards and be set up poorly. I think it would be easier to make child themes off of a nice theme framework or fork a framework into a regular theme with a different look.

There are many instances where the original theme author is long gone, so that is the reason for the theme being out of date. Therefore, someone needs to take "ownership" of them to keep them alive. When people like Jeff want to modify these themes, it's likely to make them 2.7+ compliant.

[Brad]

On Twitter, someone made the comment that most themes are just a rework of the default theme Kubrick yet I've never seen a theme that mentions or credits Michael Heilemann in it's style sheet. Doesn't mean people don't do it, I've just never come across a theme that did and I've looked at a ton of WP themes. It makes me wonder how often that policy is actually practiced.

[Jeffro]

Just thinking about the old theme repository, those guys didn't do a good job pruning outdated themes so we ended up with a bunch of bad themes available to the public. I hope this new repository doesn't go down the same route.

Also, I think using an old theme and then revamping it to be compatible with the latest version of WordPress makes for a great learning experience as starting off from scratch could be a wall too high to climb for some.

[Brad]

Seems like I remember a well known WP plugin author getting a bit upset because someone copied his code into their plugin and never gave him credit. I believe it even made it into the repository.

[andrea_r]

If your modifying a work, then the original author should be stated, with his copyright if he has some on the code.

If you take part of a work and insert it into your project, you show document what code isn't yours, its copyright, who you got it from, and where you got it.

When we're talking about GPL, part of the reason they are out there is to be modified. Brad made an excellent point about the default theme being redone (to death IMO). Spamboy also makes excellent points - if someone doesn't pick up a dead theme and rework it, well - what's the point in leaving them there then?

There are actually quite a number of old themes that are dead from the orginal dev's perspective, that still hold up today (design-wise) and would be wonderful for the community to have again.

With GPL, I don't think you *have* to leave credit, but I do feel it is nice, and the right thing to do, to give credit to the original somewhere, even if it's just in the stylesheet.

Examples:
- if I take a theme, and just add things like widget support, threaded comments, a custom header option, maybe an options page, well I'm not going to re-release it under *MY* name. I'd just release it as a modifed version of X theme, by Y. With maybe my name as co-author, and the new download link in the URL.

- if I take a theme and modify all the graphics, change the layout a bit AND add all the stuff above? Then I'd say I was the author, but still say it was based off X theme.

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Whenever I personally make a theme from scratch, I start with a modifed version of Classic, which has been so overworked by me, the only thing left is the class & id names (which are pretty generic). Buried somewhere in the description, I say it was based on a modded version of Classic.

But I'm still the theme author.

If there were peopel promoting a policy of writing a theme from scratch, instead of using one of the default, or an old them, as a jumping point, we'd see a heck of a lot less theme and a ton less invention.

Why reinvent the wheel? Programmers are lazy; we'll re-use code as much as we can. ;)

[Jeffro]

Yeah, that involved Joost DeValk and a plugin he created, someone had taken code out of his plugin, did some of their own and put it in the repository without ever giving credit to Joost. The discussion is somewhere on the hackers mailing list archive

[Ryan]

I recoded the Revolution Church and Yoghourt themes from scratch a while ago. They're now available within my template generator. I left a credit link in the footer since the original themes are still under development, I had zero to do with the actual design and I blatantly replicated the originals. However I didn't need to add the credit link in the footer, I could have simply included a credit somewhere in the source if I wanted to. But I feel that if a substantial part of the original code or design is not original then it's nice to give a little more credit back than is necessary.

My template generator also includes the footer links even if the user modifies the design to such an extent that it looks nothing like the original. Since they used a particular design as a base, then I keep the footer links for that design intact.


Credit of some sort should clearly be given though and is required as part of the GPL. That case with Joost DeValk was appaling, particularly since the copier wouldn't even admit to having stolen the code when called on it despite it being blatantly obvious by flicking through the source.

I'm considering incorporating an entire plugin which is in the repository and including it within a new plugin I'm developing at the moment. I'll definitely be including a prominent link in the admin panel back to the original developer though. If I didn't, I'd expect to be castigated by the WordPress community.