Recently I stumbled upon two posts that had pointed out interesting implications of WordPress using GPL as it’s license. I guess not many gave a serious thought to that, me included. We all kind of know that GPL is something that is associated with ‘free’, we like that and use it as such.
But as attributing world of WordPress becomes more commercial every day, with paid plugins and ‘premium’ themes, I thought it is important to understand what GPL really brings to that world.
And the implication of GPL is this: all WordPress plugins and themes automatically fall under GPL license. In other words, even if you paid for that ‘power’ plugin or ‘premium’ theme, and even if author tried to put a different license on it, you are free to modify it, give it away for free or even resell it yourself.
The implication comes mainly from this paragraph of GPL:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
This means that whenever a theme or a plugin uses just one function from the WordPress code, GPL license automatically ‘kicks in’ and takes over. And since plugins and themes must use WordPress functions they automatically become GPL as well.
What this means..
You are free to remove those links from the theme that author tried to forbid you from (even from sponsored themes). Even when an author slaps a CC (Creative Commons) license on the theme, and demands you respect the links or work, you do not have to as they are actually violating the GPL by putting CC over it.
This goes for plugins as well. In fact for all WordPress based solutions. GPL allows you to do whatever you want with it including reselling it straight away.
I do not have any commercial WordPress plugins and themes but if that applies to commercial, it applies to non-commercial as well. If I get it correctly, my plugins automatically become GPL whether I like it or not, and you can actually take any of my plugins and sell them for profit.
I am not sure I would like that but my hands seem to be tied. What do you think?
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November 17th, 2008 at 4:23
Hi Lawrence - It sounds like you might be misunderstanding this discussion since your comments don’t seem to be on topic. In short, my personal response was that one is not entitled to declare a plugin to be GPL if it has not been so licensed by the developer. I also think it’s against the law to steal from cocaine dealers. Hope that helps!
November 15th, 2008 at 13:01
Let’s bring this back to business principles and processes, something that a legitimate commercial business is held accountable to by a court of law (IRS, Better Business Bureau, UK Office of Fair Trade, ASIC, ATO, etc..)
A commercial design studio creates creative works, as defined by the Copyright Act. These creative work may be integrated into applications such as Wordpress, Joomla and the rest. Who therefore remains the owners of said copyrighted works ? Usually the design studio, unless they sign over the copyrights to their clientele.
So by what right does Joomla (and/or Wordpress) seek to create litigate against design studios around the world, in essence, making the work of those design studios GPL ?
They have no right. The contracts employed by the design studios who utilise Wordpress, Joomla and any other GPL based package do not utilise the GPL as a contract licence. At best, they are creating a service utilising GPL components to deliver a commercial solution for a business. The only laws pertaining to their work remain contract law (BBB / Fair Trading) and copyright. Not the GPL. The GPL is never invoked inside the contract, as the client usually requests a template for a particular CMS package. It does not matter if the CMS package is licenced under the GPL or not. The studio is contracted to deliver a creative work.
This has been the fundamental achilles heel within the GPL debarcle that remains unspoken for a year. As long as the GPL is not invoked as part of the contract law between business and client, any licence can be applied. Creative Commons, Commercial copyright, whatever.
Face it, Amy, every time you and the Joomla team you represent through the Communications team, seek to champion design contracts must be commercialised GPL, you profoundly misunderstand the nature of business contracts within the design world.
Furthermore, thanks to the push towards “GPL compliance”, Joomla, as a CMS, has attracted the cheap, hobby, unethical market where commercial components continue to be pirated or even worse, developers threatened with attempted hacks against them to pirate works. This is backed up by analysing Joomla.org over Quantcast and other measures.
It’s not the commercial developers fault that Joomla is attracting the bottom end (low/no cost) players who want to get into the web.
It does seem ironic that the Joomla.org template design gets pirated so often that they’ve had to create a sticky and FAQ on it in the forum. And where do you think these pirates get the idea that it’s okay to pirate from the Joomla.org site ? From the actions done by the SFLC, Joomla Core, and advocates such as Amy Stephen.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:55
I agree, up to a point. If the original, non-derivative code is distributed within a package that is largely GPL I think you will find that the whole distribution is GPL.
Themes/templates are more complicated. WordPress themes can consist of many different files and the hooks into the WordPress API are often a very minor part of the theme. If a theme can stand alone from WordPress (or any other web app) and look the same, regardless of whether the data is pulled in or not, then its arguable that the GPL applies. A theme developer could just as easily release a commercial theme with notes saying “add get_sidebar on line xyz between these tags”.
The issue of whether themes are GPL or not is not even clear on the GNU/GPL FAQ’s http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WMS
There is a lot of misunderstanding over the GPL and a whole heap of arguments about its interpretation. But, at the end of the day, the only people who have any say in how their code is used are the copyright holders themselves. They are the only ones with rights to enforce the license and it would be very wrong of people to make assumptions about what they can or can’t do with commercial themes or plugins. If they say their work is CC and you disagree, you should take this up with them but not breach their license. If its commercial GPL then there is nothing stopping you from distributing the work either free, or for a fee.
October 24th, 2008 at 16:36
>>Reading that paragraph from GPL again I get the impression that what Bad Behaviour does is not enough - you would need to also distribute GPL-ed and non GPL-ed files separately, because if you distribute is as one ‘work’ it automatically becomes GPL in whole.
No. You can’t automatically assume licensing just because somebody distributes stuff in the same ZIP file. The law is not that simplistic.
If I write two pieces of code, then I own those pieces of code. If I then decide to license them differently, but put them in the same ZIP, nothing in the world can prevent me from doing that. I wrote the code, I own it, and I can do with it as I please.
The GPL only has any power over derivative code. If I write a separate piece of code that is clearly not derived from WordPress, then WordPress’ license has no power over me at all, no matter what ZIP files I put it in.
October 10th, 2008 at 17:35
@Ryan: Actually, OSX is based on BSD, which uses (obviously) the BSD license.
This is why I keep recommending BSD-style licenses, because they are more permissive.
As far as what your lawyer says, I’d be curious who that was, and what specifically they said. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but developers tend to hear what they want to hear in regards to things said about licensing.
The lawyer may have said that it’s ok to produce commercial software that contains GPL-licensed source. That is true. That doesn’t preclude it from itself being GPL-licensed and being subject to the terms of the license. Remember, GPL does not mean non-commercial.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:28
I’m not a lawyer so am not going to attempt to explain the details, but I recently had a long discussion with a lawyer who specialises in copyright law about this topic. I was told there is no issue with integrating GPL code into a commercial product.
Apple’s Mac OSX is a prime example of this, it apparently contains a lot of code acquired from Linux (GNU/GPL), but as a whole it is considered an original piece of work, hence anyone who is caught providing a copy of OSX for download will quite rightly land themselves in hot water with the Apple legal team.
October 7th, 2008 at 21:03
@otto: Reading that paragraph from GPL again I get the impression that what Bad Behaviour does is not enough - you would need to also distribute GPL-ed and non GPL-ed files separately, because if you distribute is as one ‘work’ it automatically becomes GPL in whole.
Same would probably apply to theme CSS and image files. GPL code only includes the CSS (like BB plugin includes independent code) so it does not fall under GPL? But you would have to distribute the CSS and images separately, no?
October 7th, 2008 at 20:33
There is a specific case where one could successfully distribute a plugin without tying it to the GPL.
Look very, very closely at how the Bad Behavior plugin works. He has a core set of files that are independent of any WordPress functions at all. Then there is a plugin that connects WordPress to those core files. He also includes several plugins for other platforms, which are not WordPress oriented at all. He even gives instructions on how to use it bare, by itself, on any PHP site.
In that case, the only WordPress derived piece of Bad Behavior is that one single file “plugin” which ties the WordPress hooks to the Bad Behavior functions. The core is clearly not a WordPress derivative at all, by any sane definition, and so does not really have to be bound by the GPL.
So, in theory, one could make a plugin that way, as long as one made it clearly obvious (as BB does) that the major piece of code is an independent piece of code.
October 4th, 2008 at 21:58
I think the main argument here for ASL is that it is giving you a choice, unlike GPL. And like you said, Apache is doing very well (but so is WordPress to be fair)
October 4th, 2008 at 21:42
Ha ha! I agree, we are not. And in that respect, my analogy is poor. In the case of themes and plugins, because of how the license works, redistributing derivatives is not stealing. They are entitled due to the acceptance of the original author of the terms of the GPL, as implied by their release of the work.
Please consider this: If a person produces a work that must be licensed as GPL and erroneously releases it under some other license, what right do they have to demand that things derived from their own work now correctly licensed under the GPL be discontinued unless they themselves discontinue release of their own work? I say “none”. I’m not event addressing whether the third party had a right to derive from their code or not. What I’m asking is, what is the original author’s legal recourse for that demand? Even if they have one, it’s tenuous. Good luck showing up in court asking for remediation without having your own work revoked or fully opened.
Being that this is the backbone of the discussion - the idea that there are dozens of clearinghouses selling WordPress themes that should rightly be GPL and resalable for any price, even gratis - it would behoove someone like the SFLC to address that issue rather than rehashing how to appropriately apply the GPL. I look forward to that link reference.
It’s a terrible state. Depending on how you look at it, you’ve got these theme resellers making money dealing in illegally licensed goods. From another perspective, you’re screwing the theme developers out of money they feel they should have rights to. From another perspective, the free open source software community is getting hosed for lack of themes being developed under their license because it doesn’t secure the theme developer himself any rights.
So far, the suggestion is that it’s not ok to “steal” from people who license their themes incorrectly, yet unless the copyright holder - once again, “WordPress”, an entity that doesn’t really exist - does something about it, there’s no problem. At best it’s an awfully big loophole, and it’s certainly not moral. As I’ve said a couple of times here, a loophole is not a business model.
I feel like I’ve reached the end of my ability to persuade with this topic, though. Not that I’ve changed my mind, just that I think I’m not making any headway. I’m interested in hearing other viewpoints.
@Vladimir: Well of course the bad side of ASL is that it’s not altruistic at all.
That’s not entirely true. I think that arguments have been made against ASL with the idea being that the code is not as free as with GPL. That is, by allowing commercial protection to derivatives, freedom is taken away from users to do what they want with the software.
There is also an argument about open/free release stagnation due to commercial availability. So if someone comes along and releases a great commercial plugin, why would anyone release a free one? Or the worse argument, if you can charge for your plugins, why would anyone release a plugin for free?
I don’t buy into these arguments, though. I think that healthy competition exists between free and commercial products. Look at Open Office as an example, now in its third major release. Maybe the commercial products will be better. As a developer I feel that a fair price for premium work is is fair. It stems back to the idea that GPL-style licenses don’t afford the developer any real rights. If the developers aren’t getting paid for the actual work, then it all happens on the service side. Are things really better for the user if they always have to pay for service for everything they want improved?
We looked at other BSD-style licenses for Habari after quickly dismissing GPL. The Apache license is pretty well known, and one of the founders is heavily involved in the Apache Foundation. He was very convincing about the virtues of the way Apache works, and we’ve taken a lot of their ideals to heart with Habari. How bad can it be when their web server is used everywhere?
October 4th, 2008 at 21:05
Owen thanks for that lengthy explanation, I think I got it all now.
In your pursue for appropriate Habari licensing mechanism, you came up with ASL. Since I’ve got more interested in licenses now when I learned the other side of GPL, I guess I will try to steal you away from your work just a little bit more with this question: are there any bad sides of ASL that you are aware of, and what other licenses that came close to your requirements did you considering?
October 4th, 2008 at 21:00
Actually, I think it’s a good thing. I know a lot of people who make great money from premium WordPress themes etc. but I think it’s a little crooked personally. I do WordPress customizations for clients all the time and they’re made fully aware that the work I’m doing in GPL, only my time is worth money.
October 4th, 2008 at 20:43
Dude - we are not entitled to steal from cocaine dealers, either.
Even if the items we steal are 100% funded by criminal activity, that does not legally entitle us.
Now, the government, on the other hand, has the right to the spoils of illegal gain. But, even then (and here’s where the preverbial point comes in-> ) there is something called “due process” and a legal framework that keeps pistols holstered and provides our society with legal stability.
The GPL is an interesting instrument with brutal intention and that is liberating code - and keeping it free (the subject of this conversation.) Many do not care for the terms of the license, many do. Here’s a good read from the SFLC.
October 4th, 2008 at 19:47
@Amy Stephen:
Yes. So follow through with the logic: If you do distribute, and compliance is required, then distributed materials must be compliant, regardless of what other stipulations you might make. The public hasn’t “assumed possession of their work”, they’re merely using the work under the license that it is required to have been released under. The alternative is not to distribute.
Where I’m coming at this is from the pursuit of remedies should the author of the GPL-violating code seek them. If someone releases code contrary to the terms of the GPL with which they must comply, and someone modifies and redistributes their code in concurrence with the GPL, then what remedy does that original author have? For example, if I purchase your erroneously licensed WordPress theme, and then release it with or without changes for free, I think it would be very difficult for you to win damages on your losses for something that you licensed improperly in the first place.
It’s like stealing from a cocaine dealer. If you snatch a couple of keys of coke from a dealer, what recourse does he have to seek remedy in court?
No, nobody should be dealing in cocaine. Likewise, everyone who distributes components for WordPress should distribute with GPL, and live with those consequences.
To be clear, my thoughts have nothing to do with “WordPress”, an entity that doesn’t even really exist, coming after people who release components outside of license compliance. This is the fear people seem to focus on, and it just doesn’t exist. My thoughts are about the ability for creators of those components to defend their monetary rights if someone else, assuming as they should that the code is covered by the GPL, “steals” their code. My concern is for protecting the rights of the people who write plugins and themes; the people who tried in vain to relicense their offerings to do just that. If that’s your intent, you should not be writing WordPress components because the GPL virtually strips those rights.
And then there’s Joomla, which has gone completely off the reservation as far as licensing is concerned. The graphic components are released under a different license? I advocated this idea in Habari for a while, but really the GPL-ness of the code that must exist in the template files provides a framework upon which the CSS rests. Unless there’s something to apply that CSS to outside of what the code for the template generates, the CSS is covered under the GPL as well. Keep using the same clause in the GPL, and your graphics would be covered too.
I think that the Joomla community’s interpretation is a convenient delusion for allowing themers to continue to sell their wares, but the whole idea seems contrary to the ideals of the GPL in the first place. The Joomla née Mambo authors should have been more careful about the selection of their license if they intended industry to form around it.
Personally, I’d wash my hands of this nonsense and seek out a product with a more business-friendly license and code for that. For example, there’s no requirement for theme or plugin authors to distribute ASL or GPL plugins for Habari. Just avoid the trouble altogether.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:38
Very good clarification. It seems that is so, with the GPL.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:42
Never would someone’s violation of the GPL be legal grounds for the general public to assume possession of their work. Regardless of how tiny the improvement might be — they own the copyright to it and do not have to distribute. (Don’t forget - the GPL does *not* require you distribute improvements - it merely stipulates that if you do, you must do so within the license terms.)
Once distribution begins, then compliance is required. But, again, only those who hold the copyright can take action if there is a violation. Typically, insisting on distribution with a compliant license - or - stopping distribution are the end results. (Depending on how difficult one has been, sometimes a penalty.)
Even one who’s own copyright was violated could not insist on someone else’s work being liberated - they could only insist on compliance with the GPL. (And, again, the GPL does *not* require distribution.)
Good day!
October 4th, 2008 at 0:18
@Amy I believe GPL simply makes their CC license invalid in the first place - like it wasn’t there. Perhaps Owen can shed more light on the subject.
October 3rd, 2008 at 23:18
@Serge K. Keller: Yes. And I really like the idea of the Street Performer Protocol as doing exactly what you suggest: Allow generic works for hire that can be released under GPL license after the threshhold is reached.
I think - and this may be entirely my biased perspective from moving to Habari from WordPress - the turmoil is being stirred up by other platforms using different licenses specifically because WordPress doesn’t allow it. And I think that as a result of more permissive platforms like Habari coming into public view, people who were selling WordPress themes were surprised to find out that what they were doing wasn’t a sound business model to begin with.
Being a developer myself, I’ve been working within the intricacies of open and closed licenses for a long time. I would not expect designers, who are the primary purveyor of themes, to be as familiar with these notions. To me, their backlash is quite expected, since in most other fields of artistic expression, license is more restrictive than with open licenses. For example, even if you want a print of a painting, you pay a license fee. You can’t record performances without a license fee. Etc.
To us, and anyone who has read the license to try to understand it, the implications of the license are obvious. But I think many people have assumed things work as they traditionally have, nobody has stopped them, and this has resulted in ignorance that may eventually end in misfortune for those who aren’t wary of the consequences. So when I read these cries of despair from themers, I don’t so much wonder where the “angst” comes from as shrug and say “I expected this to happen”.
October 3rd, 2008 at 23:00
@Owen: “This means that it’s pointless to charge for a theme or plugin, because after it’s sold, the “owner” can do whatever they want with it”I completely agree with you on this (and the rest).
Perhaps whre my stance differs is in the fact that I’ve always seen that as a pointless business model anyway. Sure, creating a theme or a plugin of the quality of, say, those of Vladimir’s is quite a work.
But the nature of electronic media makes it so that, once created, the cost of reproducing it is zero. How can you charge that correctly? Certainly not by selling a theme $50.-: the copy has no inherent value in itself (it’s only electrons, people!), but the work and the thoughts and care that went behind it in the first place have. How can you give that a price?
Well, you could ask to be paid for the creation: a contractual work, for example, or a given work for a company. Or you could offer what hardly anyone else can: service, support, developing and nurturing a community around your product. After all, nobody knows that product better than you, if you created it!
@all: just to make it very clear, as English is not my native language and perhaps I’m a bit too convoluted: I’m not defending the GPL at all costs, other licenses (even proprietary, in some cases) have helped nurturing great products as well as great communities. But I don’t get the sudden “angst” about WordPress’ GPL percolating to themes and plugins: it’s nothing new per se, perhaps people were not really aware of it before. “Open source” does not mean only “free to take”, but also to fully understand the consequences.
It’s not about the money, it’s about your rights.
October 3rd, 2008 at 22:43
@Pete: the rights you have if you modify the WordPress codebase are very clear: your modifications will stay under the GPL. You could sell them, but the source must be available along with them and anybody else who is capable to do so can then redistribute it further. If that is disturbing to you, consider this: the vast majority of users is not really able to build over such a product. Heck, some people are paying other people to *install* WordPress on their servers, so there is quite a margin of maneuver for you or anybody else to offer services in this domain. The products should only be an incentive, a way to tell: “we know our stuff, if you need help just ask for a quote”.