Morality Of Forking – Another well written piece covering the GPL, this thing called Spirit and an explanation that you can abide by both and still be a jerk.
If I Fork You, You Can Fork Me Right Back
Freedom is a complicated, annoying, thing, and sometimes having a freedom means you accept the consequences of that freedom. In the US, we have freedom of speech, which means we can bitch about our government if we want to. But that also means someone else, who has the polar opposite of your views, has the exact same right you do. And I will defend that person with my dying breath that they have that right, no matter how much I detest what they’re saying.
You have to keep that in perspective when you start talking about rights and legality. WooThemes had the legal right to do what they did. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to think that it was a dick move, and you may, but what it was, was 100% above-board. They were honest about it, and it was legal. The GPL affords us the freedom to make plugins, fork WordPress if we wanted, and do what we want, so long as we don’t restrict the freedoms even more.
-If I Fork You, You Can Fork Me Right Back
WordPress Theme Community In Comic Form
WooThemes has published the 5th iteration of their comic, WooVille. This time they have taken the WordPress themeing community and transformed it into a cool comic. It took me a little while but I eventually discovered the Woo Ninja who was cleverly in disguise with his surroundings. However, as was shared earlier in the week, this particular part of the image is my favorite and the most humorous.
Guess Who
It shouldn’t take anyone more than 10 seconds to realize who that person is although the illustration certainly shows a different captain biceps that I know. Also of humorous note is that Matt Mullenweg is up in the air in a helicopter overseeing all of the theme companies. I wonder if that chopper is loaded with lawyer cannons for anyone that wants to go the opposite way of the GPL. I’m joking of course but it’s funny to think of lawyers being shot out of a cannon anyways.
What’s your favorite part of the comic?
Interview With Joe Leblanc – Joomla Developer
One of the things I was most interested in doing at OpenCamp was getting an interview with both a representative from the Joomla community as well as the Drupal community to ask them a round of questions specifically to see how their communities have dealt with some of the issues the WordPress community has. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain an interview with someone from the Drupal community which is understandable considering there was so much going on, it was hard to get a hold of anyone. Fortunately though, I managed to snag Joe Leblanc for 10 minutes to talk about the state of things in the world of Joomla.
About Joe: Joe is a freelance Joomla! developer developer based in the Washington DC area. He’s the author of the book Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development,as well as the video series Joomla! Essential Training at Lynda.com. When he’s not biking, writing, or making a mess in the kitchen, he can be found pontificating at DC PHP Developers Group meetings.
In this interview, I talk to Joe about how the stance on GPL by Joomla almost ripped apart the entire community, his opinion on the positive and negative effects of not having a face to the project, his thoughts on the Open Source Matters foundation and much more.
Review Of Headway – Where SquareSpace Meets WordPress
At A Glance:
Headway is a WordPress theme framework that makes it easy for both end-users and developers alike to create killer websites. Headway is no ordinary framework however as you’ll soon find out. The theme is split GPL licensed where as the PHP code is licensed under the GPL v2. If not otherwise stated, all images, cascading style sheets, and included JavaScript are NOT GPL, and are released under the Headway Themes Proprietary Use License v1.0 unless specifically authorized by Headway Themes. Elements of the themes released under this proprietary license may not be redistributed or repackaged for use other than those allowed by the Terms of Service. The Headway personal option costs $87.00 while the developer option costs $164.00.
At the time of this review, the purchase page for Headway themes has two options, Personal and Developer. Further down on the page is a section on what you can and can’t do. The what Can’t You Do section screams anti-GPL but I’ve followed up with Grant Griffiths who has notified me that that particular page will be be updated to reflect the licensing changes that have occurred recently.
The theme version which I’ve reviewed is 1.7 Beta. The current as of August 19th stable version of Headway is 1.6.6.
Configuration And Use:
I’m really happy to see that Headway Themes is at least split licensed GPL now because this theme needs more exposure. Configuration of Headway was a breeze and contained the usual selection of options such as the Feed URL, favicon location, etc. Headway also has a comprehensive search engine optimization configuration panel where if you were to use something like AIO SEO with Headway, it might be over kill.
Headway Configuration Panel
What do you notice missing from the following screenshot? Most themes have options in the back-end that allow you to configure the number of sidebars, which side of the site those sidebars will appear on, header uploader, etc. That’s all missing from the Configuration page of Headway because this particular framework contains a Visual Editor. The visual editor has taken the place of the visual display options normally configured from the back-end of WordPress allowing the configuration page to be strictly tied to the behaviour of the theme. This is a great way to solve the dilemma of hundreds of options to configure for the theme.
By far, the visual editor is the bread and butter of Headway. The only thing I’ve seen that I can compare the visual editor to is SquareSpace and the editor they provide for creating designs.
For at least the past two years, I’ve talked about the idea of being able to visually design a WordPress theme with something like a WYSIWYG type of editor. Drag a content box here, drag a sidebar there, etc. I’m really excited to see this idea see the light of day thanks to Headway. After going through the editor wizard which allows me to select a default layout e.g. sidebar right content left or sidebar left content right, color scheme of the major elements of the site, the ability to upload a header image, I’m then ready to start editing the various elements that comprise the site. I could go on and on about how awesome the visual editor is and what it entails you to do but the following video illustrates it much better than 1,000 words can.
If that type of versatility is not enough, welcome to Leafs. Leafs are sort of like widgets but more powerful and flexible. For example, Headway ships with a Text/HTML/PHP leaf that is like a WordPress Text Widget on steroids. Leafs are content boxes that exist between the header and the footer. For example, in the following screenshot, I’ve created a new Content leaf.
Instead of the default mode of a Page or single post, I’ve selected the option to use a Custom Query. This allows me to use filters and configure additional options that take the default content leaf to new leaps and bounds. This also illustrates that the developer types can have fun with the visual editor as well. Speaking of developers, Headway contains something called Easy hooks. Headway Easy Hooks provides you a simple way to add content to your site that would otherwise be impossible (without hacking, of course).
Easy Hooks For Developers
Headway has done a great job of modularizing aspects of the design such that things are broken up to the point where you can export configuration settings for specific sections and import them into another site using Headway. Among the various items that can be exported are the Headway Configuration options, SEO Settings, Visual Editor: Header, Footer, Navigation, and Site Dimensions, Visual Editor: Style, Visual Editor: Leaf Templates, and a full export/backup of the configuration of the theme which does not include leafs, layouts for any pages and widgets. This is great, especially for those that purchase a Headway developers license as they have made it incredibly easy not to repeat development work such as a cool Leaf.
Support:
Support for Headway is handled by free documentation available to anyone who wants to read/watch it located here. Highly recommended before playing around with the theme. There is also a support forum available to members only. Also note that in order to receive automatic updates of Headway, you’ll need to have a valid registration which includes a Headway Username and Password.
Conclusion:
I was head over heels when Builder by iThemes was released because it brought me closer to the concept of the WYSIWYG apporach to building a WordPress theme. However, Headway has made my vision a reality. In fact, Headway makes it FUN to design a WordPress theme/skin. Instead of editing CSS, dealing with FTP to over write files, etc, the visual editor approach that Headway provides is something I would love to see WordPress in the future get a grasp of for a default theme instead of the same old approach. I’d also love to see the Headway visual editor or something like it to end up on WordPress.com.
I don’t think I’ve said a bad thing about Headway because there was very little to find wrong with the theme. The headway team should be very proud of themselves for creating such a kick ass product.
Thesis Goes Split Licensed – Hell Freezes Over
Yesterday was a great day for the WordPress community as Chris Pearson announced that the license for Thesis would be changed so that the PHP would fall under the GPL while the images, CSS, and other stuff would be licensed under something else. While this is not WordPress.org GPL worthy, it is kosher with the license itself and at this point, that’s all that matters. There are a ton of posts all across the community talking about the subject of Thesis, Chris Pearson, Matt Mullenweg, and the GPL but this one by Jolie O’ Dell of Mashable does a great job of summarizing the events that lead up to the split license for Thesis. For further reading and it’s a long post, I suggest this post that talks about the leadership role of Matt during this entire escapade.
It’s evident by this tweet that he simply doesn’t ‘get it‘ and most likely never will because ego or something else blinds the man from reality. What I don’t like is the simple fact that it’s just not right, to create a piece of work that ties into a free and open platform with millions of users and it’s licensed in a way that takes away the very freedoms users of that software have been granted thanks to the GPL license. Developers for WordPress should really get a grasp of the basic concepts of the license that WordPress has and if they don’t like it, develop for a platform that has a license that conforms to their thoughts, beliefs, or way they want to do things. WordPress is GPLv2 and it’s never going to change so they can either go with the flow or find some other platform to work on. It’s aggravating to me to think that going against the GPL within the WordPress community makes any kind of business sense at all but if you develop a decent product, have great marketing along with good support and a naive userbase who doesn’t know jack about licenses and the freedoms granted with the GPL, I guess you can get by for awhile.
So, congratulations to Thesis for coming into the realm of sanity with a split license model but as far as I’m concerned, the theme doesn’t exist and my feelings for the individual have not changed either.
Where’s Matt – July 2010
No, this isn’t an episode of WordPress Weekly but I am using the podcast feed to publish this interview. Once a month, I get in touch with Matt Mullenweg to find out where he’s at and what he’s been up to. In this months edition, we talked about the climax of the Thesis/GPL debate. We also talk about WordPress.org improvements, bbPress as a plugin, progress report on some of the 3.org projects, and much more. Enjoy the interview.
Relevant Links:
Before you listen to this interview, particularly with the discussion surrounding the GPL and Thesis, you should watch/listen to the following interview conducted by Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com. It’s a great look inside of the arguments from both sides.
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Length Of Episode: 37 Minutes
Download The Show: WheresMattJuly2010.mp3
Listen To Episode WheresMattJuly2010:
GPL Drinking On The WP Community Podcast
Due to some scheduling conflicts with their original guests, I was invited to participate on the WordPress Community Podcast hosted by Yoast and Frederick Townes. In this episode, we spent the majority of time talking about the GPL. It was good timing since Grant Griffiths of the Headway theme was also part of the show. We also chatted about the issue of how much credit should plugin and theme authors give themselves outside of the usual spots as discussed here.
One thing to note about this particular episode. There was no flamewar or vicious GPL debating going on. Rather, it’s a general conversation with someone that has not yet decided to go with the GPL and their reasons into why. According to Grant, their current business model is working, despite the lack of being GPL compliant. Since their business is running well, the only reasons I can see them switching to GPL compliance either with the full theme or just the PHP code is to be in the good graces of Matt and the majority of the WordPress community. Being GPL compliant would give them much more advertising and more people would review the theme. I can’t review Headway and tell everyone about it because of my agreement to only support GPL compliant products as they relate to WordPress.
P.S. I was drinking Smirnoff during the show and each time GPL was said, I took a drink. I felt pretty good by the end of the show.
PremiumThemes.net Club Membership Winners
Last week, thanks to the help of BHavesh, I was able to offer readers of WPTavern a pretty cool deal. Five PremiumThemes.net club memberships. The only thing you had to do was tell me how you would use WPTavern.com if it were in your hands. The post received a number of comments and in fact, a couple of ideas mentioned I’m going to try and aim towards.
Each comment was given a number. Since there were 38 unique comments, the numbers range from 1-38. The winners are as follows:
- RGregory
- Jon Shaw
- Benjamin
- Brian – CodeClearly
- Marlon Burrows
I will be emailing Bhavesh the email address you folks used when submitting a comment and he should be in touch with you regarding your club membership within the next few days. Thanks again for your ideas and a special thanks to PremiumThemes.net for not only offering up a cool prize package but for embracing the GPL as well.
To the winners, feel free to contact me to show me how you’ve put the membership to good use.
Q And A With Darren Hoyt Regarding TheLocal
I recently had the chance to send some questions over Darren’s way regarding the newest theme released by Pro Theme Design called TheLocal. This theme is aimed at the HyperLocal news market and contains specific items such as the weather, date and time, and an awesome front page that is all widgetized. On with the interview!
To start things off, what inspired you to create this theme alongside Ben Gillbanks?
Since before the first Mimbo theme, I had a fair amount of experience designing for newspapers and magazines and I always liked that format.
As traditional media began changing in the last few years, I got more frequent emails from journalists who were either fired or were striking out on their own. I convinced a few of them to trade some insider knowledge for some WordPress help.
One journalist in particular gave me a long list of features that followed the hyperlocal model which was starting to grow. I pitched them to Ben and he was able to take about 90% of them and turn them into widgets or control panel options, which really thrilled this particular writer.
I also started signing up for a lot of journalism communities and Ning networks, etc, to connect with writers and find out what they were looking for. The Local is really just the first step, as we already have a lot more we want to add.
Why have you decided to go down the route of single site and multi-site licenses?
There are people who use our themes to set up quickie websites for their own purposes and may only have a question or two in the forums. The single-license offers support for only that one domain.
Then there are developers who use a single version of Elemental to build out 10 client sites with multiple child-theme designs. When they buy a multi-license, they get PSDs, sample child themes, as well as ongoing support for a number of domains.
What are some of the key points of differentiation from other premium themes?
I think a big selling point is the custom widgets and the fact the homepage is entirely widgetized. Ben has coded it so that no matter which column you insert widgets, the widths change dynamically so it’s difficult to break the layout. This is really important when the audience is writers with limited technical knowledge.
Also the Adsense widgets are nice. They can be used in 6 different sizes throughout the site. All you need is an account number and it generates the widgets, which are sized according to whatever column you insert them. The homepage grid was specifically chosen to accommodate the standard sizes.
How easy is TheLocal to modify outside of it’s given purpose? For example, what if I want three sidebars on the top half of the page instead of four?
Since most of the heavy lifting is done via the parent theme Elemental, the index.php file for The Local is only a few lines -
<?php get_header(); ?> <div id="widgetcol-1"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-1'); ?></div> <div id="widgetcol-2"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-2'); ?></div> <div id="widgetcol-3"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-3'); ?></div> <div id="widgetcol-4"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-4'); ?></div> <?php get_footer(); ?>
Even for a new user, styling or moving around the columns or inserting standard content is straightforward.
Also since it inherits all of Elemental’s functionality, the theme comes with a control panel that lets you edit your nav (pages vs. categories), typography, weather, footer categories, header image, and so on.
Would you consider this a magazine theme, or something different?
I think a magazine has more emphasis on original content whereas The Local does a lot more aggregation and appeals to community interests.
Can you explain what “Additional customizable content areas via action hooks” and is this geared more towards the developer crowd?
This has become more common in frameworks like Thematic and Hybrid and we wanted to include it here so that people were free to add PHP functions or HTML within certain pockets of the layout without having to touch the templates and interfere with the upgrade process. There are 12 different regions that you can edit this way.
Anything else you’d like to add or say?
A better way to tour the theme and really see what it can do is to check out
the product screencasts – http://prothemedesign.com/themes/thelocal/