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Cutline Dropped On WordPress.com In Favor Of Coraline

Cutline Dropped On WordPress.com In Favor Of Coraline

By Jeffro on August 11, 2010

While I don’t normally write about WordPress.com happenings at WPTavern.com, the removal of Cutline for a new theme called Coraline is making headlines, and rightly so. The first reason why this is such a big story is because the Cutline theme was developed by Chris Pearson a few years ago. The same Chris Pearson that recently announced Thesis would be switching to a split licensed setup. Chris also has another theme on WordPress.com called Press Row which according to this comment by Matt, will be seeing a similar fate. Keep in mind though that his comment was made during a heated time period between Chris and Matt. Ian Stewart who is a member of the Automattic Theme team announced within the WordPress.com forums that licensing also played a role into its removal:

Cutline was sold a few years ago and had a more restrictive license placed on it. The original author of the Cutline theme has gone on to produce other themes with more restrictive licenses. Using Cutline has been seen as a promotion of that work and that’s not something we want to do–so, we made something better: Coraline! The state of the art in themes has advanced quite a bit since Cutline and we’re happy to make the switch.

*Note* David Peralty mentions in the comments that Cutline never had a more restrictive license and was always licensed under Creative Commons.

The second reason why this is a big story is the way in which the theme was introduced/switched. The post I linked to with Ian Stewart was created four days before the switch. The WordPress.com blog mentions nothing in the archive leading up to the switch that Cutline would be disappearing. Users of the service virtually had no time what so ever to transition to the new theme. It’s as if someone threw common sense out the window and felt that dealing with anger up front from users would be better than creating a smooth transition. There are plenty of ways in which this could have gone over better. For instance, at least give users thirty days prior to the switch. For those that don’t read the blog post, they could have written something that detected whether or not Cutline was activated as the theme in use and if so, display a custom Admin message within the dashboard with a link to the phase out post. A sticky forum post to go with the blog post would have been a nice touch. You wouldn’t be able to make everyone happy once the switch occurred but all of the information before hand would have softened the blow.

That’s the way I would have done it, certainly not the way it was done. The one pattern I’m beginning to take note of is the one in which drastic changes or decisions are made with little to no warning. There is always an uproar from those affected or upset by the change and after a period of time, life moves on without anything being done about the original decision. Happened with the removal of themes from the repository, the Capital P filter and now the removal of Cutline on WP.com. I suppose we can now expect the unexpected.

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Thesis Goes Split Licensed – Hell Freezes Over

Thesis Goes Split Licensed – Hell Freezes Over

By Jeffro on July 23, 2010

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.

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Where’s Matt – July 2010

Where’s Matt – July 2010

By Jeffro on July 16, 2010

wordpressweekly1No, 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.

WPWeekly Meta:

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 37 Minutes

Download The Show: WheresMattJuly2010.mp3

Listen To Episode WheresMattJuly2010:

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Thesis Creator On WP Community Podcast

Thesis Creator On WP Community Podcast

By Jeffro on February 15, 2010

Thesis creator Chris Pearson was the special guest on last weeks episode of the WordPress Community Podcast with Joost de Valk and Frederick Townes. There is at least one sticking point in the conversation that I can readily agree with Chris Pearson on and that’s the lack of synergy between the front-end and back-end of WordPress. Just about everything requires you to log into the back-end of WordPress to do anything, whether it be editing a post, a comment, a text widget, etc. One of the coolest things that SquareSpace offers over WordPress is the ability to manage most of the site from the front-end. Not only is this a major time saver, but it just makes sense to have certain tasks be accomplished without having to go through an administrative interface.

I know there is a plugin that bridges the gap right now called Front-end Editor by Scribu and I think some themes can accomplish this goal but at some point in the future, this synergy between the front and back-end of WordPress will happen and it will be a big shift in efficiently managing a WordPress site. Going through an administrative interface to accomplish anything is the OLD way of doing things. I’m ready for the NEW way!

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How To Screw Up Your Image

How To Screw Up Your Image

By Jeffro on May 1, 2009

Community member Kim Parsell sent me a notification the other day containing a series of messages exchanged on Twitter between Matt Mullenweg, Chris Pearson, and Brian Clark. I’m not sure how the conversation was initiated considering the post/comment that was linked to was created back at the end of March. At any rate, here is how the conversation on Twitter went down.

@photomatt I think Brian Clark / Chris Pearson of Thesis theme just said they want to sue WordPress. about 1 hour ago from web

@photomatt @bishless Sue, an anti-GPL case. I guess they’re against Open Source enough to sue their underlying platform to prove their interpretation? about 1 hour ago from web in reply to bishless

@photomatt There’s a history of litigiousness? http://blogigs.com/the-thesis-like-theme/ “I release the rest of my internet hounds on your site to shame you into oblivion” about 1 hour ago from web

@wyliemac Whoa. Something is brewing between @photomatt and the thesis guys, @copyblogger and @pearsonified. A GPL issue. about 1 hour ago from web

@wyliemac RT @copyblogger: @photomatt No, we invited you to sue us because you think we are doing something wrong. Intellectual honesty is your friend about 1 hour ago from web

@photomatt :( RT @copyblogger: @photomatt You better watch it Matt. We invited you to sue us to settle the GPL, but libel gets you a new world of hurt. 23 minutes ago from web

Upon checking out the BlogGigs link you’ll find an announcement about a theme Costa created called Thesis Like. Checking out the BlogGigs archive and also seeing the big 300 pixel sized advertisement, it’s clear that this person is a huge fan of the Thesis theme. However, the excitement for Costa was short lived as the first comment on the blog was from Thesis creator Chris Pearson.

First off, everyone take note on what has happened here as this is the way you are NOT supposed to handle a situation like this. Although Costa complied with Chris’s requests, Chris did a great job making himself look like a big, tough, cyberbully. I’d be upset too if someone released a free theme which mimicked my commercial product and on top of that, used my products name but I would have sent an email first. In fact, if you take a look at the business opportunity here, I would have offered some sort of cool license deal or something creative in exchange for Costa to take down his Thesis Like theme. Instead, Costa gets slapped across the face and threatened with the prospect of Internet hounds putting his site into shame. The next day, Costa publishes a public apology to Chris where in the comment section, Chris admits that he may not have handled the situation correctly.

GPL Fight! – Just Kidding:

I really don’t want to go down the GPL road again but it’s pretty clear that Thesis doesn’t give a damn about the GPL license, just like the customers who purchase premium themes not filed under the GPL. They just want a great looking theme which works, is affordable, and has a great support base. If they have to pay a fee to remove an attribution link, seems like customers happily do so with no questions asked.

A part of me would like to create a theme that clones Thesis but has my own php/WordPress code, my own CSS, and a big header image that points a middle finger at the Thesis logo. But I won’t do that and like Matt, I’ll let the market decide what happens to premium theme shops like Thesis.

Now I understand how Matt can get pretty upset when he sees premium theme outlets take full advantage of the free, open-source platform that has allowed them to establish their business while on the flipside, shut out the open-source nature of the platform with their commercial product.

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