Themes and modules are derivatives and should be licensed under the GPL
I've spoken out in support of Matt Mullenweg, WordPress, the GPL, and general open source community principles before. It seems like we keep having this discussion, and that it often degenerates into a battle of personalities.
Here's what I continue to believe about licensing and the GPL, which started as a comment on Why the GPL does not apply to Premium WordPress themes, which is part of the #thesiswp running battle. For context, you may also want to watch the Chris Pearson / Matt Mullenweg interview.
Bottom line: Themes and modules are derivatives and should be licensed under the GPL. You can use trademark and other non-code protections that will let you sell them and limit distribution if that is your chosen business model.
The rest of this is the comment I posted.
The way that PHP is executed means that everything runs together in the same space, with no separation (this is a simplification, but essentially correct). So, not the same as the red herring about software apps and operating systems (this comes up all the time).
The Drupal community generally agrees with WordPress in that all themes and modules are derivatives and thus must be licensed as GPL *if* you distribute.
Luckily, themes have CSS, images, and other pieces which can by copyrighted/trademarked and licensed in whatever way you see fit. The legal page on the Drupal-focused TopNotchThemes site makes this nice and clear:
- Drupal is open source software covered by the GPL. Portions of our themes (typically the .php files) that interact with Drupal are thus covered by the GPL and may be freely distributed
- The “look and feel” of our themes which includes files not dependent on Drupal (typically graphics and CSS) are not subject to the GPL and are the intellectual property of TopNotchThemes and licensed to you upon purchase via our website.
- You may not redistribute these files or use them for more than one production website
- We have no liability for and make no warranty for our themes
Great, plain, simple language. Go ahead and sell custom / premium / whatever themes day in and day out. The code bits of the PHP are a derivative work, and must be licensed under the GPL.
I've been looking for an excuse to dig into premium plugins as well (as a signpost towards thinking about such things in Drupal, especially as one digs into the many trademarked products / distributions that abound).
I think my friends at WordPress development shop BraveNewCode are doing excellent, pioneering work with WPTouch Pro. Read their Terms and Conditions for an example of how well done "premium" WordPress plugins / Drupal modules might be successful, all in accordance with the GPL.
Comments
I recently started a project
I recently started a project with a wordpress theme framework called Hybrid. From the website, I got the understanding that it was open source under the GPL and I started my project.
I began doing my work and eventually hit a road block. I went back to the site looking for documentation to find out, that the documentation costs $25. I forged ahead that day pissed off that I had been mislead. The next day, I purchased the documentation only to find out it was sub-par anyways. Not happy about all this, but I guess it was my fault. One of the reasons I use open source is because of the community lead documentation. Interesting business model non the less.
I've used the Thematic wordpress theme framework in the past which was open source and had excellent documentation. It was fine for my needs, but not ideal, so I decided to try something else.
Why does running in the same space matter?
There are lots of situations where two different pieces of software run "in the same space." Software plug-ins and statically linked libraries are obvious examples. Does being in the same space mean that the two pieces are derivative?
If anything, it seems that having both pieces in the same space doesn't create a "derivative work," under copyright law, but more likely a "compilation," like when you take two independently created works and put them together into a book. That could be, say, a ts eliot poem, along with commentary about the poem. The compilation cannot be reproduced (because doing so would violate the right of reproduction in the poem), but there's nothing wrong with physically stapling commentary to the poem.
In any case, suppose that the memory containing both Wordpress and the theme's PHP is indeed a derivative work, who is creating this derivative work? It seems to me that this is likely the person who owns the server and causes them both to be loaded into memory at the same time, and not the author of the theme. Further, the server owner isn't *distributing* or even copying this derivative work, so there's no violation of the GPL there either. (This is basically the loophole that the Affero license was intended to cover.)
I understand the desire to bring paid themes under the GPL, but it seems to me that if the Wordpress community really wants to do this, it needs a different license agreement than the GPL.
open
I agree with your view. I think that if you want to do business in the open-source landscape you should play the open-source game.
That's why I license the code from my premium themes GPL and I also distribute my code freely in form of jQuery plugins and free Drupal themes, that way the premium themes business helps the open source project(s) move forward, instead of hurting them by keeping specific theming and module features closed-source... Like you see in Joomla, where certain features are only available if you pay for them.
peach - sooperthemes.com
Agreed, but...
...kinda strange to read that piece in relationship with commercial products.
You should read some
You should read some proprietary EULAs some time.
For years I ignorantly parroted the widely-held myth that propriety software at least gives users "a throat to choke" if something goes wrong. Then it occurred to me that I should actually read some proprietary licenses, and it seems pretty much all of them (except for licenses for packages which are bundled with support contracts) go on at great length to disclaim liability for anything beyond (at most) the sticker price of the software.
I believe local law in most places entitles you to this much, regardless of licensing terms, so if you paid for either GPLed or proprietary software it's likely that you could get your money back if it doesn't meet reasonable expectations. Whether it's worth taking someone to court over a Drupal theme is another matter.
Standard
That's a standard clause. It means that they don't warrant that it will work if you use it to control nuclear submarines, or whatever.