On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Insurance Squared Inc. <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gcooke@insurancesquared.com">gcooke@insurancesquared.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
GPL just streamrolled right over a commercial application.<br>
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Background: Most folks here know wordpress as a content management system/blogging platform. Chris Pearson created a paid theme called 'Thesis' and promoted the heck out of it, right down to affiliate marketing. By all accounts he was wildly financially successful. The thesis 'theme' is actually a combination theme, toolset, and theme development package. I personally bought and use the 'developer' license of the Thesis theme.<br>
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The folks at wordpress got into a twitter/interview/blogosphere argument with the developer of this theme, suggesting that because of the theme's association with wordpress, which is GPL, that therefore the theme must also be GPL (instead of $89 or whatever it was that he was charging. I think I paid $150).<br>
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Long story short, the thesis theme is now effectively GPL. Some articles on this:<br>
<a href="http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-matt-mullenweg/" target="_blank">http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-matt-mullenweg/</a><br>
<a href="http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-thesis-interview/" target="_blank">http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-thesis-interview/</a><br>
<a href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/thesis-relents/" target="_blank">http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/thesis-relents/</a><br>
<a href="http://www.webmasterworld.com/content_management/4173762.htm" target="_blank">http://www.webmasterworld.com/content_management/4173762.htm</a><br>
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Interesting application of the GPL forcing someone to release code from a very profitable business model. Also this may stifle some creativity in wordpress themes - one of the reasons many people use wordpress instead of better CMS's like drupal. Which is ironic, since wordpress forced this issue and it may end up harming them.<br>
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Actually - actually! This may be good news. Because now someone can port this over to drupal (something I've actually wanted) and I can get rid of the tech nightmare that is wordpress.<br>
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g.<br></blockquote></div><br clear="all">The question here is what is "derived work" and whether a Wordpress theme<br>fits that definition or not.<br><br>By the way, Drupal has the same stance: all modules and themes are derived<br>
work too, and hence GPL (at least the PHP portion of themes, not images).<br><br>The only CMS that has a different stance is Joomla, who say that extensions <br>and plugins are not GPL automatically.<br><br>And in the kernel world, we have Linus asserting that all device drivers written<br>
specifically for Linux are GPL and derived work.<br><br>So this stance is not unique to Wordpress or Drupal by any means ...<br><br>The whole stance depends on what the GPL FAQ used to state which can be<br>paraphrased as "if programs run in the same address space, then the GPL <br>
applies to everything in the address space". That wording was created in the<br>GPL when the world was composed of compiled programs with static of shared<br>libraries, and the GPL wanted to make sure that there was no closed source <br>
library that is non GPL yet your application depended on it to function, hence<br>the stance was to prevent this loophole.<br><br>Here is the "same address space" stance from the FAQ:<br><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins</a><br>
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF</a><br><br>The workaround is to run your proprietary stuff over a socket and interface<br>to the GPL application and now you have legally circumvented the GPL.<br>
<br>Things have changed since then with interpreted languages: we have Drupal<br>or Wordpress run in the same address space as Apache and PHP with MySQL<br>libraries and other stuff. So where is the demarcation? No longer an easy question.<br>
<br>Yet the GPL FAQ says it has to be so:<br><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLModuleLicense">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLModuleLicense</a><br><br>My personal view is: if your application can't run because it depends on module<br>
X or component Y, then that component should be GPL, but if I have a module<br>that merely extends the application in a certain way, yet it is optional, then that<br>module could be non-GPL. Of course, this is an opinion, and many disagree with<br>
that opinion.<br><br>I also see that the GNU site has started to update their FAQ, and this is something<br>that I have not seen before that exactly addresses the template issue in CMSs.<br><br><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WMS">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WMS</a><br>
<br>Worth reading that FAQ from scratch again, it seems, since it contains a lot<br>of fresh information pertaining to contemporary use of dynamic languages.<br><br>From a practical point of view, not just licensing, I believe that releasing your<br>
modules free is far better for the developer, and the ecosystem, for many<br>reasons: the code gets fixes, features and upgrades that are impossible<br>for one or a few people to do on their own, the developer gets recognition,<br>
the ecosystem for the larger application gets better by having more components,<br>the developer gets new business, everyone wins, except those who are locked<br>into the mentality that they should press CDs and sell their software commercially<br>
only.<br><br>I know, because many years ago, I had two commercial modules. It became<br>too much of an effort maintaining a commercial version that has the full features<br>and a free version with some features disabled. Once I opened them up the<br>
community effect went into full swing and opened my eyes to what I said above.<br>Also, the modules did not make much money any way when they were <br>commercial.<br><br>So there you have it: free your code, not for ideology or because you are forced <br>
to, but rather for your own benefit, for the code's benefit and for the larger <br>community's benefit too ...<br>-- <br>Khalid M. Baheyeldin<br><a href="http://2bits.com">2bits.com</a>, Inc.<br><a href="http://2bits.com">http://2bits.com</a><br>
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.<br>Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. -- Edsger W.Dijkstra<br>Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -- Leonardo da Vinci<br>