Comments on: WordPress theme licensing

By: sampath

sampath — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:10:20 +0000

Wordpress is one of the great free CMC for blog or web so themes should be free too but i know its hard to develop difference kind of themes so i hope its ok to charge something to cover developing time.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:02:13 +0000

I didn’t mean to imply that I support trying to work around the GPL. Obviously, I’m not pushing to make money off my own plugins (and I haven’t even made much of an effort to promote donations). But I can put myself in the other guy’s shoes, play devil’s advocate, and see that the conditions surrounding themes might not be iron clad. And if I can see it, then I’m sure that those who have more motivation have seen it, too.

As I said in the main post, I’m certain that we’ll continue to have great themes that are fully GPL-licensed. Anything important that is ever done in a ‘for-pay’ theme can be replicated in a GPL theme, if somebody has the motivation to create it.

I still think that a way to create smarty-based themes would be interesting, though. Not for the GPL-insulating aspect, but for the fact that it might open WordPress theming up to designers who aren’t as comfortable with the PHP code-fu that theming currently requires.

By: worpdress-blog-theme-zeke-10-widgets at cause death

worpdress-blog-theme-zeke-10-widgets at cause death — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:46:52 +0000

[...] WordPress theme licensing – Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings [...]

By: Andrei Belogortseff

Andrei Belogortseff — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:12:34 +0000

Not all is as clear about this as GNU wants us to believe. The following article gives a legal analysis of the “plugins must be GPL’d” claim:

http://www.law.washington.edu/lct/swp/Law/derivative.html

It’s a long article but it’s well worth the read.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:31:37 +0000

There are a thousand ways you can get around the GPL and find loopholes, but those aren’t really things we want to support or promote.

By: Rahul Sonar

Rahul Sonar — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:23:28 +0000

I believe wordpress is free, so themes should be free as well. But if a programmer is hardly working on its designing, he can charge for his work!!!

By: Jeffro

Jeffro — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:14:01 +0000

Now we have to read a bunch of posts wondering when Commercial GPL plugins will receive the same treatment in regards to a page dedicated to companies or services doing things that way outside of the plugin repository.

By: mercime

mercime — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:09:11 +0000

I am all for capitalism. No money, no honey My $0.02 is that anyone can add to the heap of the minutiae of non-WordPress specific items in a WP theme. The bottom line is that that theme is useless unless one uploads the theme to the wp-content/themes/ folder of a WordPress or WPMU installation and activates it.

By: blognews (blognews)

blognews (blognews) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:30:29 +0000

[planet wordpress]: Dougal Campbell: WordPress theme licensing: There is finally an official .. http://tinyurl.com/nqd8zm

By: Dan Coulter

Dan Coulter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:43:07 +0000

Do WordPress plugins automatically fall under the GPL for the same reason?