I think there needs to be a clear line here between those who are blatantly breaking the law and those who are simply releasing themes under an alternative license in a legal way. There are ways to release themes without requiring the theme as a whole to be licensed under the GPL. However those who are simply ignoring the license entirely and simply re-licensing GPL code are clearly in the wrong, there isn't really any argument there IMO.

I recall Jeff asking a question related to this to Matt Mullenweg a while back, but Matt sort of side stepped around it by talking about how WordPress.org is concerned about encouraging the use of the GPL and not about finding ways to punish non-GPL software.

If Jacob Santos releases the API system which he said he is developing to allow the use of non-GPL code in themes and plugins I can see a lot more premium themes being released as it will become much easier to build them without jumping through hoops trying to avoid the GPL.

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I didn't specifically point out premium theme authors in my post, but since we're on the subject, I'll address that. It's my opinion as well that many premium theme authors do a lot of good for the community regardless of licensing. There's no denying how Brian Gardner (in his pre-GPL days) probably brought more users to WordPress than most of us and definitely brought about a new "revolution" in theme design. Same with WooThemes and iThemes.

But, there are those that hurt the community as well. I've seen some pretty shady sites selling themes and have heard from my users about some bad deals they've gotten from premium theme authors.

As a sidenote to this: More than half, yes 50%+, of my freelance work is fixing problems with premium themes.

Again, I never said anyone selling premium themes was in the wrong. I can't really comment on the Joomla community though since I don't have a grasp of what's going on there.

I put the smiley after that. ;) It was just the first thing that popped into my head.

I do remember the definition of distribution. In fact, I spent the better part of my college career figuring out what words mean depending on their context (English major). I don't think I can be convinced that WP.com is distributing themes.

Yes, that's the standard suggestion, but no one's holding anyone to that. I would think that Matt would want us to be creative enough to come up with our own models (even if those like me can't).

I'm anti-Matt sometimes too. In terms of what they're doing with Automattic, I like how they've set up their business model and believe it aligns perfectly with the GPL.

It's good to be critical of the people at the top sometimes, especially in the open-source community.

I think I'm finished asking questions about the GPL, WordPress, Automattic, etc. It does nothing but leave me with more questions. It also seems to polarize people when you ask questions or try to get clarification about who owns what, who decides what, etc. I'm going back to a place in time I'll call "ignorant bliss" and just accept the fact that I have this wonderful software called WordPress available to me when I need it.

I'm out, besides I have some more Joomla to learn. Happy trails.

Yeah. I have trouble getting my head around some of it too.


I had a meeting with a copyright law specialist about the GPL a while back now - who incidentally has also released a GPL WordPress theme.

The main thing which I learned from that meeting was that the GPL is far more complex than any non-legal expert can see.

I was shown numerous ways to work around the GPL and was told that it is entirely feasible to release a copy protected work based on GPL software without it being considered a derivative work. Some of the workarounds would be irritating to do, but there seems to be no reason that this can not be done. There are apparently numerous examples of this type of thing going on the Linux world.

After an hour of listening I finally decided that my small brain could not cope and I gave up understanding it all. I just try to make sure I know enough to ensure I don't breach the license conditions.

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Because the users don't receive a copy. They are *using* the files, but they cannot get a copy to do with as they see fit - like you do when you rent a movie, for example. That's the difference.

In wp.com's case, it's like people are going to watch the movie at the theater, for example - not getting their own copy on DVD (or torrent, whatever :P )

Use or participation is not distribution. We're using this forum, but we all sure don't have a copy.

Yes, we probably should. Remember the early days? If a "bad" company went around, people knew about it, word passed, they all stayed away, bad guys went home.

Now? Community's tooooooo big for news like this to travel.

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My take on this (I have no official say of any kind, this is just my take on the situation. Agree or disagree with it if you like, it won't offend me. :) ):

- All WordPress themes must be GPL-compatible. Period. Any theme that is not is in violation of the WordPress license. There's really no room for argument on this, the license terms are quite clear, the precendents are straightforward, and any lawyer worth his salt will tell you the same. If you disagree with this basic premise, then you're simply wrong. Sorry.

- WP doesn't seem to be actively enforcing that license via lawsuits and such. Since they're the only ones who could possibly do such, people can get away with releasing said themes, but it's still a license violation.

- Their "enforcement" is (so far) limited to not including those themes on wp.org's theme directory. They're also actively rejecting themes that link to sites which have or otherwise support non-GPL themes.

- The depth to which they look for such "support" varies. Sometimes they won't notice a mere link to a non-GPL theme site, sometimes they will.

- Nevertheless, the bottom line here is simple: If you support non-GPL themes in pretty much any fashion, then don't expect to get your themes into the directory.

Note that this is all about licensing. It has nothing to do with selling themes. You can sell a GPL theme and that is perfectly legit and proper. So if you're a theme author and want to make money selling themes, but put others in the directory for free, then that's okay. As long as they're all GPL-compatible, then you're fine.

Additional: Yes, there are ways to get around the GPL. However, it is my opinion that in the specific case of a WordPress theme, this would be extremely difficult to do. I do know of one way, but I'm not telling. ;) Plugins have several possible ways to get around it if they really, really wanted to do so; themes don't.

Otto, your comments are right on.
For me it's simple. I thoroughly enjoy developing plugins and themes for WordPress. I do so knowing that my plugins and themes will inherit the GPL, and that somebody can certainly (and they do) take them, modify them, redistribute them, etc. If I were adamantly opposed to that happening, I wouldn't be a WordPress developer. I wouldn't develop open source software at all. The whole reason the GPL exists is to allow people to use, modify, and/or redistribute the software as they wish.
If you don't like the terms of developing open source software, particularly under the GPL, then WordPress development may not be the right area for you. There are many non-open source opportunities out there.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Thanks for popping in Otto. You seem to have a good understanding of where things stand on this issue ... which seems to be rare.

Do you know of any themes which do work around the GPL? I'd guess some of the premium themes out there are already doing this, particularly those who seem to be declaring that they aren't doing anything wrong (Thesis springs to mind). I've seen under the hood of some of these themes and they do seem to have some extraordinarily convoluted code in there which I couldn't be bothered unravelling. I've often wondered if the reason for the PHP behind them being so excessive has been in an attempt to do exactly that ... work around the license under which the developers of the platform they are developing for intended them to follow.

My legal advisor actually recommended I did exactly this for my template generator, hence I'm interested in the subject. I decided that was an inappropriate course of action since it isn't really in the spirit of the WordPress community.

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What do you do with your template generator? Generate complicated code, or avoid using WordPress calls to stay away from GPL issues?

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Nothing. All themes exported from the template generator are GPL. I decided that doing anything else was a bad idea.


I think you missed the following bit of my post above:

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