What you call the "WordPress ecosystem" is really the "GPL ecosystem." If license terms can be arbitrarily separated in derivative works, the argument becomes far more important for enforcement of those terms as a whole.
As many are fond of saying in the open-source world, if you don't like the license terms, you are free to make your own [software] under any license you like, provided your code is your own, or licensed under terms compatible with the license you choose.
Envato's stance enables them to enforce copyright terms, whereas a GPL license is, by nature, far more open and encourages reuse by others. It's my opinion that WordPress is in the right here (aside from the fact that it's their convention to do with what they please) regarding license enforcement, but I can certainly understand Envato's position.
> What you call the "WordPress ecosystem" is really the "GPL ecosystem." If license terms can be arbitrarily separated in derivative works, the argument becomes far more important for enforcement of those terms as a whole.
Well, I'd be careful with that. The open source project I contribute to (KDE) has quite a bit of GPL'ed code, but it also has quite a bit of other licenses in use, so it is certainly possible to have arbitrary licenses that make up a given single derivative work.
If I understand Envato's argument correctly, they make derivative themes (and license the derivation under GPL), which has embedded hooks to allow for other content to be read in later. This other content (normally art or CSS?) is not necessarily licensed under GPL, because it is not considered by Envato to be derivative of WordPress content.
To be honest I would side with Envato here. Linking khelpcenter (GPL) to kdelibs (LGPL) does not make kdelibs suddenly GPL'ed software, and using khelpcenter to display GFDL'ed documentation in an integrated fashion doesn't make khelpcenter suddenly GFDL'ed.
The real question is whether the "additional content" is truly derivative or whether it is originated by Envato and then linked in (since GPL has provisions to allow linking in content with other licenses). Of course, maybe WordPress used a modified license to forbid linking, but then that wouldn't really be GPL, it would be something else.
> Well, I'd be careful with that. The open source project I contribute to (KDE) has quite a bit of GPL'ed code, but it also has quite a bit of other licenses in use, so it is certainly possible to have arbitrary licenses that make up a given single derivative work.
Yes, so long as those other license are GPL-compatible. 3-clause BSD, MIT, ISC, etc. are all GPL-compatible. The license that Envato is allowing or using for the non-PHP theme assets is not, so the question does become one of whether the theme assets are a derivative work.
I don't agree with this statement, but in any case, it should read "The WordPress foundation"... because the ecosystem is largely made by those same commercial developers.
This is the kind of stuff that makes commercial companies fearful of GPL software. It's not the disagreement that is the serious issue, but the fact that this legal document is completely unclear as to how it's supposed to work (and the LGPL is even more frighteningly uninterpretable).
id Software makes its game engines free when their technology gets dated, but the artistic/creative content remains copyrighted. They do this by having a copyright "airlock" interface between the executable and the game data (WAD/PAK/PK3/whatever files). The lesson to learn from this conflict is that if you run an open-source project that encourages creative or artistic content add-ons that may remain proprietary, it's a good idea to establish a rigid copyright airlock between the free stuff and the creative stuff.
Making the creative portion an entirely different codebase/downloadable that is licensed under something else.
If, like WordPress, you want to enforce GPL compliance for derivative projects, then spell out clear exceptions to your derivation clause - if they even just spelled out themes it would have made this problem moot.
I feel like they don't want to spell it out. It allows them to gain a ton of value and IP to then wrap up and sell on their site as part of a service (without giving anything back).
It doesn't seem that WordPress wants to make an exception. That is, the license without exceptions is functioning exactly as they intend, and they think ThemeForest is doing something wrong, not should-be-right-but-is-technically-wrong.
id Software is also the copyright holder of the games and can choose to license the game or parts of the game out however they want and as often as they want.
They did have the occasional issue where they were using comercial libraries and had to take those out of the codebase before they could open source them.
In this case, the theme developers are not copyright holders of the WordPress code and thus are subject to the WordPress.org's license.
Slightly inaccurate article - I've been following the discussion to some extent, and it's not that ThemeForest developers/sellers are banned from attending WordCamps, it's that they're banned from presenting, volunteering, or sponsoring.
Basically it's a GPL dispute - ThemeForest themes are not fully GPL (they GPL the PHP, but not CSS, etc.), and the WordPress.org folks are against that.
I'm not going to get into whether they think that this stance is legally wrong or whether it's just that they don't want to offer a venue and what might be perceived by some as endorsement or official sanction, because I don't know and I'm not sure that everyone involved does either. I do think that (from what I've heard) the way the WordPress Foundation has approached it is a bit heavy-handed.
It doesn't, and nor do any images created for a theme, but the WordPress Foundation have taken a stance of insisting that anyone providing a theme that contains any non GPL elements is not allowed to speak / help organise a WordCamp conference.
So, this isn't strictly about what's legally required to fall under the GPL.
No, but I'm assuming that as most CC licenses (CC0 being the exception according to the GNU site [1]) aren't GPL compatible, the attitude would be the same. However, I have no real domain expertise here, so I could be very wrong.
This doesn't make sense to me because the people who purchase these themes are not in the WP organization. What's the difference between literally giving you the source and allowing you to use the source?
So are we saying for a commercial developer to legally distribute themes and not open the source code they'd have to basically build their own platform ala wordpress.com? Seems like that would basically only be using the GPL as a tool for monopoly. Does that mean Thesis and Genesis and these toolkits are also violating GPL since they are not openly available?
Really, well where is the publicly available code for Genesis then? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that I can't find it in Google. Isn't the most basic premise of the GPL that source code should be publicly available? I don't see anywhere on the StudioPress site where this code is posted. This whole argument by WP is bringing up a lot of questions about whether or not I want to continue to use WP as a development platform in the future.
No, the premise of the GPL is that if the software is distributed to you, then you have a right to the source code. This is very different from the code having to be publicly available to anyone.
There is, of course, nothing stopping anyone from buying the source code, and making it publicly available.
GPL allows you to sell access, but does not permit you to restrict the distribution from that point forward. Essentially, it's legal to re-sell the same bundle.
The GPL does not require source code to be "publicly available".
IMO the basic premise of the GPL is that users who receive the program/app/whatever may also get the source code, modify it, and further distribute under the same license.
Section 3 of GPL2 states:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Most do "a" but "b" is acceptable and Section 1 even allows for charging a fee for the source code.
If you want the source code from Genesis, you buy the theme. The GPL doesn't mean you can't charge for a product. It does mean if you buy that product you get the source code and you get the right to use, change and redistribute that code.
At that point, you have the right to distribute it in any way you want -- provided you aren't restricting StudioPress's rights. That means you could actually resell the same theme for a lower price if you wanted and StudioPress would bitch and moan but couldn't legally do anything about it.
That happens with Linux. Red Hat sells their product to clients. They also offer up the uncompiled source code. Others, CentOS, Scientific Linux, etc., take that code and compile it and distribute it for free. The advantage of buying from Red Hat is support and fastest access to newest stuff.
There is absolutely nothing stopping me from buying a StudioPress theme and putting a download link to it on my site, or even hosting that content on Github. It might be poor taste, but there'd be nothing against StudioPress's rights with me doing that.
My biggest issues with GPL was it was written in an age of traditionally compiled languages. It wasn't written for the nuance of web language and the context of what is distribution, what is complete, what is compiled is different and to me, not as cut and dried.
Most of the commercial WordPress theme shops (outside of Envato) do run fully GPL shops. They do this not because of altruism but because Matt and WordPress.org strong armed them into making the decision to change around 2009/2010. Since then, it's become common.
The reason you don't see people bitching about giving up their redistribution rights or the rights on their images and CSS is because most people who buy WordPress themes aren't on HN, they buy a theme, customize it, use it. They don't think about, "oh, I cold resell this same theme and undercut someone else."
You're confused about how gplv2 works, Genesis gives you the source code and you are free to distribute it if you'd like, or alter it, but they don't have to distribute it for free.
Effectively closing the source with a loophole and removing user choice. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it knocks the "for the good of WP users" argument they use down a few pegs.
Because all the major theme shops are 100% GPL. GPL != free. Some other marketplaces would fall in this category like TF, but they are a tiny fraction of the size of TF.
I try to ignore these things because the GPL generally just infuriates me, but do themes seriously count as derivative works for the purpose of GPL licensing?
For most software, a "theme" would look a lot like "top color: #ff00ff; font: Helvetica". AIUI, for Wordpress, themes often involve quite a bit of PHP code calling deep into Wordpress' guts to slice and dice the list of posts in interesting ways. This makes it much more reasonable to claim that the GPL extends to themes.
... of course, the GPL is all about "linking", and it's not at all clear what this means if you're not programming something C-like.
So maybe either Wordpress.org needs to a) sell the next version of Wordpress and see how many users are left or b) somehow disallow commercial themes by tightening / changing licensing and then see how many users are left...
What's the best license advice if you do want commercial organisations to be able to use your code without ambiguity?
I'm looking to open-source a few bits of code soon, and actively want commercial entities to not have to worry about using them, but am not sure what to go with.
MIT or BSD are pretty permissive. The MIT one is arguably clearer because there's only a single version, whereas the BSD has a few (three clause, four clause, etc).
Depends on what you want to retain. Fundamentally, enforcement of any license comes down to the legal weight you're willing to put into enforcing it.
If you want the copyleft style license, the GPLv2 is fairly acceptable, whereas some companies don't like the GPLv3's changes (Apple, for one). LGPLv2 with a linking exception for static binaries is another option, especially if your code component will be included in other products that require solid binaries (various App stores).
If copyleft isn't required, the MIT/BSD/Apache licenses have differing levels of advertising requirements/bans, and legal/patent protections.
If you really just want to get it out there in the open, declaring it public domain or no license is probably the easiest way.
It sounds like they are following the letter of the GPL but not the spirit. By licensing the PHP under GPL they are complying, but by licensing the CSS and image assets under a restrictive license they are activity trying to hinder the PHP from being useful if it were distributed. As the GPL is designed to do.
Did they really understand the GPL when they built their business on it?
So WP.org says that all files of a theme or plugin need to be GPL since they're building on top of a GPL'ed piece of software even though this theme or plugin might not use any of the original GPL code.
Then how does this work for content you put in a WP website? You're using the database, of which the layout can be considered an interface. Should all the content be GPL'ed as well? And how does that work if your theme uses another OS project, say Bootstrap (which is an Apache licence)?
Then how does this work for content you put in a WP website?
Before even getting to that question... viewing output on a website is irrelevant as far as the GPL is concerned, only the AGPL deals with that. You can take GPL code, make some changes to it, put it up on a web server, let people use it... and you don't have to distribute your changes.
Which is nice for them, because they can then legally use it in their service and charge for it (without giving anything back because it's only a service).
The problem with this is that there is an actual legal GPL license but also what is referred to as the "spirit" of GPL.
WTF "spirit" is comes down to whatever the founder wants it to be, in this case Matt has decided to target developers instead of addressing the issue with Envato or the community. It has created a confusing situation with good people stuck in the middle.
Why was Jake Caputo singled out, several WordCamp speakers and even core contributors have items on Envato. Are developers going to have to submit under pseudonyms so they can make a living?
Envato itself sponsors the WordPress community summit (and past wordcamps). Do they not see this as a mixed signal?
Who exactly is behind the elusive wordpress.org foundation, is it a private foundation run only by Matt himself?
How are the foundation goals not polluted by having the same director of the closed source wordpress.com (who also sell premium themes but in the context of a "service").
Why does the "spirit" of GPL apply to a large company and not me, for example I can copyright my images/graphics in a WordPress theme and still comply with the license, but Envato can't?
Is the line drawn when only when a theme is distributed? What about all the theme shops that have non GPL creative work in them?
Is Wordpress.com exempt because it is a service, what is preventing Envato or anyone else from starting it's own split-license theme "service". What exactly is the difference between a theme service and a theme distributor?
Your own client work, etc. doesn't have the same requirements for graphics and CSS as WordPress themes because the work isn't distributed.
The foundation holds the keys to the WordPress logo, and it also does things like support WordCamps that aren't profitable to keep those communities strong. It's also a legal barrier to protect WordCamp organizers. See this post: http://wordpressfoundation.org/2012/wordcamps-and-such/ The foundation is also starting to monetarily support local meetups (more frequent gatherings than WordCamp). I think Matt is the only person in charge of the foundation, but I'm not sure.
People who are selling plugins or themes on Envato are banned from being a speaker or even volunteering. Envato members can still attend the gathering.
'While legally you can make a technical argument that in a theme the PHP, CSS, JS, and images are separate things, from the point of view of a user they make up a single unit of usefulness, one “thing.” Users intuitively understand this, just like it’d be strange to have a car you could drive anywhere, but you had to remove the wheels if you went outside a certain area (the so-called “split license”). Most theme authors and businesses in the WP community also understand this, in fact all of the theme shops on the commercial themes page and many of the most successful including WooThemes and StudioPress sell 100% GPL themes that protect all the rights of their users, and have been extremely successful doing so.
It’s an author and developer’s choice to license all their code under the GPL, and it’s our choice to only promote, accept sponsorship, and accept speaking proposals from people who do so. It’s not a personal thing, and the guidelines apply equally to everyone, and if someone who broke the guidelines in the past stopped tomorrow there would be no hard feelings (it’s not a blackball, which implies permanent exclusion, it’s just part of the social mores of our community).'
Does this remind you of anything?
Greater good, comply and you'll be OK, free == freedom for everyone, etc.
I really want to give Matt and the foundation a benefit of the doubt here, but they are making it very difficult.
I followed up with a question about the WP logo, which is bundled in the WP.org download but protected.
'The GPL is a license granted under copyright law, which is separate from a trademark, which WordPress and its logo are. It’s totally allowed by the software license for someone to take the software and make a hosting service, they just have to have their own name for it, like Edublogs. (Some OS communities consider trademark restrictions too much as well, which is why there’s a fork of Firefox called “Iceweasel” included in Debian.) In addition to the guidelines on the Foundation site, having the trademark also gives us a tool to take down phishing sites that target WordPress.org users, or people who set up theme directories at similar-to-WordPress domains where every download includes a malware backdoor. There are many hundreds of these per year.'
It seems there are plenty of loopholes when they want them to exist. What I want to know is - what can I do, as a plugin and theme author, to ensure I am properly paid for my work?
Well I don't often do consulting work, but that's actually covered because the GPL does not apply to 'work for hire.'
I don't attend WordCamps or contribute to core, so it doesn't affect me, but it does bother me that the platform I'm building for has principles that are fundamentally opposite to my own.
Do theme authors without the dual license make less money? I don't have the data on that, but it would be interesting to know. I don't think a split license actually makes a positive difference on the bottom line over full GPL on both php and js/css/etc.
I find Envato's licenses very limiting and authors have to play by their rules to be in their market place. However, I'm not against the split licensing at all, just wish authors could more freely choose under what terms to sell their works, such as pricing and what the terms are for installing a design on multiple sites.
I don't think it's the same thing as the foundation is operating under the motivation to protect the freedoms on which the platform depends and thrives. Envato has multiple motivations, remaining the biggest market place being a big one and they put a lot of restrictions under which terms authors can distribute their works. That being said I don't agree with punishing Envato authors/users in the way the Foundation's seems to right now.
I don't know if they do or not, but I don't think a developer should feel bad for doing what he can to ensure his work isn't stolen.
If I wanted to, I could raid the WP theme and plugin repo and re-sell all of them. Since I'm a developer, I could offer support that exceeds the level most get with free themes/plugins and provide value. I don't because I have ethical boundaries, but there are plenty that do not.
I'm not against split licensing, I think it's a fair for an author to decide. Envato makes that decision for its authors, I think that's unfair to authors.
Having said that, I don't buy into to the idea that Envato's licensing protects author's works, at least not for WordPress themes & plugins - if there's data to support the contrary, that would be interesting to find out. The reason I think this it is not the case is that there are outfits excelling with their business doing everything GPL. As far as I know there are no companies that have regretted switching to pure GPL in the WP space.
Secondly, the reality of the fact is that even with restrictive licenses, trademarks and lawyers in place it's impossible to prevent people from copying/stealing/etc. What does work is having a community that cares about principles and understands why they are important which is why I think the foundation believes these kinds of positions are necessary even if they draw harsh lines. (I do not agree with banning/excluding/or putting authors needlessly in bad graces with the community as they are now though)
The fact that it (authors making less via GPL) hasn't happened doesn't make it a non-issue. It just means it hasn't happened yet.
I agree it's impossible to prevent, but any rational individual will try their best to stop it until the work > return. I think the 'community' is a straw man in this case.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadAs many are fond of saying in the open-source world, if you don't like the license terms, you are free to make your own [software] under any license you like, provided your code is your own, or licensed under terms compatible with the license you choose.
Envato's stance enables them to enforce copyright terms, whereas a GPL license is, by nature, far more open and encourages reuse by others. It's my opinion that WordPress is in the right here (aside from the fact that it's their convention to do with what they please) regarding license enforcement, but I can certainly understand Envato's position.
Well, I'd be careful with that. The open source project I contribute to (KDE) has quite a bit of GPL'ed code, but it also has quite a bit of other licenses in use, so it is certainly possible to have arbitrary licenses that make up a given single derivative work.
If I understand Envato's argument correctly, they make derivative themes (and license the derivation under GPL), which has embedded hooks to allow for other content to be read in later. This other content (normally art or CSS?) is not necessarily licensed under GPL, because it is not considered by Envato to be derivative of WordPress content.
To be honest I would side with Envato here. Linking khelpcenter (GPL) to kdelibs (LGPL) does not make kdelibs suddenly GPL'ed software, and using khelpcenter to display GFDL'ed documentation in an integrated fashion doesn't make khelpcenter suddenly GFDL'ed.
The real question is whether the "additional content" is truly derivative or whether it is originated by Envato and then linked in (since GPL has provisions to allow linking in content with other licenses). Of course, maybe WordPress used a modified license to forbid linking, but then that wouldn't really be GPL, it would be something else.
Yes, so long as those other license are GPL-compatible. 3-clause BSD, MIT, ISC, etc. are all GPL-compatible. The license that Envato is allowing or using for the non-PHP theme assets is not, so the question does become one of whether the theme assets are a derivative work.
That's not GPL people, that's WordPress people picking the wrong license. They shouldn't be using GPL if they want that.
If, like WordPress, you want to enforce GPL compliance for derivative projects, then spell out clear exceptions to your derivation clause - if they even just spelled out themes it would have made this problem moot.
They did have the occasional issue where they were using comercial libraries and had to take those out of the codebase before they could open source them.
In this case, the theme developers are not copyright holders of the WordPress code and thus are subject to the WordPress.org's license.
Basically it's a GPL dispute - ThemeForest themes are not fully GPL (they GPL the PHP, but not CSS, etc.), and the WordPress.org folks are against that.
I'm not going to get into whether they think that this stance is legally wrong or whether it's just that they don't want to offer a venue and what might be perceived by some as endorsement or official sanction, because I don't know and I'm not sure that everyone involved does either. I do think that (from what I've heard) the way the WordPress Foundation has approached it is a bit heavy-handed.
So, this isn't strictly about what's legally required to fall under the GPL.
[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleL...
Are they turning a blind eye to the company that writes the checks for the WordPress Foundation, or has a special exemption been carved out for them?
1. http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/sort/premium/
There is, of course, nothing stopping anyone from buying the source code, and making it publicly available.
IMO the basic premise of the GPL is that users who receive the program/app/whatever may also get the source code, modify it, and further distribute under the same license.
Section 3 of GPL2 states: 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Most do "a" but "b" is acceptable and Section 1 even allows for charging a fee for the source code.
At that point, you have the right to distribute it in any way you want -- provided you aren't restricting StudioPress's rights. That means you could actually resell the same theme for a lower price if you wanted and StudioPress would bitch and moan but couldn't legally do anything about it.
That happens with Linux. Red Hat sells their product to clients. They also offer up the uncompiled source code. Others, CentOS, Scientific Linux, etc., take that code and compile it and distribute it for free. The advantage of buying from Red Hat is support and fastest access to newest stuff.
There is absolutely nothing stopping me from buying a StudioPress theme and putting a download link to it on my site, or even hosting that content on Github. It might be poor taste, but there'd be nothing against StudioPress's rights with me doing that.
My biggest issues with GPL was it was written in an age of traditionally compiled languages. It wasn't written for the nuance of web language and the context of what is distribution, what is complete, what is compiled is different and to me, not as cut and dried.
Most of the commercial WordPress theme shops (outside of Envato) do run fully GPL shops. They do this not because of altruism but because Matt and WordPress.org strong armed them into making the decision to change around 2009/2010. Since then, it's become common.
The reason you don't see people bitching about giving up their redistribution rights or the rights on their images and CSS is because most people who buy WordPress themes aren't on HN, they buy a theme, customize it, use it. They don't think about, "oh, I cold resell this same theme and undercut someone else."
You can read more about this kind of thing here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
That's what I'm starting to think...
... of course, the GPL is all about "linking", and it's not at all clear what this means if you're not programming something C-like.
I'm looking to open-source a few bits of code soon, and actively want commercial entities to not have to worry about using them, but am not sure what to go with.
If you want the copyleft style license, the GPLv2 is fairly acceptable, whereas some companies don't like the GPLv3's changes (Apple, for one). LGPLv2 with a linking exception for static binaries is another option, especially if your code component will be included in other products that require solid binaries (various App stores).
If copyleft isn't required, the MIT/BSD/Apache licenses have differing levels of advertising requirements/bans, and legal/patent protections.
If you really just want to get it out there in the open, declaring it public domain or no license is probably the easiest way.
Did they really understand the GPL when they built their business on it?
Then how does this work for content you put in a WP website? You're using the database, of which the layout can be considered an interface. Should all the content be GPL'ed as well? And how does that work if your theme uses another OS project, say Bootstrap (which is an Apache licence)?
Before even getting to that question... viewing output on a website is irrelevant as far as the GPL is concerned, only the AGPL deals with that. You can take GPL code, make some changes to it, put it up on a web server, let people use it... and you don't have to distribute your changes.
WTF "spirit" is comes down to whatever the founder wants it to be, in this case Matt has decided to target developers instead of addressing the issue with Envato or the community. It has created a confusing situation with good people stuck in the middle.
Why was Jake Caputo singled out, several WordCamp speakers and even core contributors have items on Envato. Are developers going to have to submit under pseudonyms so they can make a living?
Envato itself sponsors the WordPress community summit (and past wordcamps). Do they not see this as a mixed signal?
Who exactly is behind the elusive wordpress.org foundation, is it a private foundation run only by Matt himself?
How are the foundation goals not polluted by having the same director of the closed source wordpress.com (who also sell premium themes but in the context of a "service").
Why does the "spirit" of GPL apply to a large company and not me, for example I can copyright my images/graphics in a WordPress theme and still comply with the license, but Envato can't?
Is the line drawn when only when a theme is distributed? What about all the theme shops that have non GPL creative work in them?
Is Wordpress.com exempt because it is a service, what is preventing Envato or anyone else from starting it's own split-license theme "service". What exactly is the difference between a theme service and a theme distributor?
ps. The original article and discussion is here: http://www.designcrumbs.com/automatically-blackballed
The foundation holds the keys to the WordPress logo, and it also does things like support WordCamps that aren't profitable to keep those communities strong. It's also a legal barrier to protect WordCamp organizers. See this post: http://wordpressfoundation.org/2012/wordcamps-and-such/ The foundation is also starting to monetarily support local meetups (more frequent gatherings than WordCamp). I think Matt is the only person in charge of the foundation, but I'm not sure.
People who are selling plugins or themes on Envato are banned from being a speaker or even volunteering. Envato members can still attend the gathering.
'While legally you can make a technical argument that in a theme the PHP, CSS, JS, and images are separate things, from the point of view of a user they make up a single unit of usefulness, one “thing.” Users intuitively understand this, just like it’d be strange to have a car you could drive anywhere, but you had to remove the wheels if you went outside a certain area (the so-called “split license”). Most theme authors and businesses in the WP community also understand this, in fact all of the theme shops on the commercial themes page and many of the most successful including WooThemes and StudioPress sell 100% GPL themes that protect all the rights of their users, and have been extremely successful doing so.
It’s an author and developer’s choice to license all their code under the GPL, and it’s our choice to only promote, accept sponsorship, and accept speaking proposals from people who do so. It’s not a personal thing, and the guidelines apply equally to everyone, and if someone who broke the guidelines in the past stopped tomorrow there would be no hard feelings (it’s not a blackball, which implies permanent exclusion, it’s just part of the social mores of our community).'
Does this remind you of anything?
Greater good, comply and you'll be OK, free == freedom for everyone, etc.
I really want to give Matt and the foundation a benefit of the doubt here, but they are making it very difficult.
I followed up with a question about the WP logo, which is bundled in the WP.org download but protected.
'The GPL is a license granted under copyright law, which is separate from a trademark, which WordPress and its logo are. It’s totally allowed by the software license for someone to take the software and make a hosting service, they just have to have their own name for it, like Edublogs. (Some OS communities consider trademark restrictions too much as well, which is why there’s a fork of Firefox called “Iceweasel” included in Debian.) In addition to the guidelines on the Foundation site, having the trademark also gives us a tool to take down phishing sites that target WordPress.org users, or people who set up theme directories at similar-to-WordPress domains where every download includes a malware backdoor. There are many hundreds of these per year.'
It seems there are plenty of loopholes when they want them to exist. What I want to know is - what can I do, as a plugin and theme author, to ensure I am properly paid for my work?
I don't attend WordCamps or contribute to core, so it doesn't affect me, but it does bother me that the platform I'm building for has principles that are fundamentally opposite to my own.
I find Envato's licenses very limiting and authors have to play by their rules to be in their market place. However, I'm not against the split licensing at all, just wish authors could more freely choose under what terms to sell their works, such as pricing and what the terms are for installing a design on multiple sites.
If I wanted to, I could raid the WP theme and plugin repo and re-sell all of them. Since I'm a developer, I could offer support that exceeds the level most get with free themes/plugins and provide value. I don't because I have ethical boundaries, but there are plenty that do not.
Having said that, I don't buy into to the idea that Envato's licensing protects author's works, at least not for WordPress themes & plugins - if there's data to support the contrary, that would be interesting to find out. The reason I think this it is not the case is that there are outfits excelling with their business doing everything GPL. As far as I know there are no companies that have regretted switching to pure GPL in the WP space.
Secondly, the reality of the fact is that even with restrictive licenses, trademarks and lawyers in place it's impossible to prevent people from copying/stealing/etc. What does work is having a community that cares about principles and understands why they are important which is why I think the foundation believes these kinds of positions are necessary even if they draw harsh lines. (I do not agree with banning/excluding/or putting authors needlessly in bad graces with the community as they are now though)
I agree it's impossible to prevent, but any rational individual will try their best to stop it until the work > return. I think the 'community' is a straw man in this case.