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The GPL is pretty clear on this. I would consider WordPress themes as plugins to WordPress. And thus, we consult the GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-fa

The GPL is pretty clear on this. I would consider WordPress themes as plugins to WordPress. And thus, we consult the GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins "If a program released under the GPL uses plug-ins, what are the requirements for the licenses of a plug-in? It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. If the program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license for the main program makes no requirements for them. If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means the plug-ins must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are distributed. If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case."

sethg 17y ago
We are all familiar with software licenses that place broad restrictions on what the customer can do (“you may not decompile, reverse-engineer, benchmark, or play FrisbeeⓇ with this Software...”), but if those restrictions have any legal effect at all, it is only because the license is in the form of a contract (“by clicking ‘I ACCEPT’ you agree to all the terms of this License...”) between the software vendor and the customer. The GPL is, by design, a license rather than a contract, and therefore it cannot forbid any action that copyright law permits. If indeed a WordPress premium theme is not a “derivative work” within the meaning of copyright law, then the GPL cannot touch it, regardless of the GPL author’s intent.
- bricestacey 17y ago
  I should preface this that I don't really know much about copyright law. The sticky point to me is that you could write WP themes as binaries called using fork/exec. So in essence, the developer's choice to use WP function calls and variables effectively makes it a derivate work, at least in my opinion. I'm not a big fan of this, though it makes the most sense in my mind (at least with my opinion mostly biased by the GPL). I remember reading Dries, the found of Drupal, effectively claiming that all Drupal modules were GPL'ed and not liking it so much that I have altered my plans for future Drupal modules (all the better for me, my intellectual property will not be open for all to witness as I intend a more hosted solution which I can charge a higher premium for). Ultimately, I feel like crusades by open source projects (WordPress, Drupal, etc) to GPL their modules will backfire and create a more restrictive, hosted component to them that they will ultimately regret. Dries did this for this anti-spam module, Mollom. I don't think he'd be so happy if core features like Views or CCK performed identically. Drupal would effectively suck. I guess thats all the more reason to reject the idea that plugins are derivative works.
  - jmillikin 17y ago
    Remember that the GPL is a copyright license. This means that the only cases in which it matters are when the work is being distributed. The problem with trying to coerce plugin authors into using the GPL is that plugins are usually distributed separately from the core application. This means there's no legal justification for suing somebody who writes a proprietary plugin, because they're not participating in any action relevant to the GPL. If I wrote an application which supports plugins, and I wanted to prevent a particular non-GPL plugin from being used, the only legally justified way I could do so would be to sue my users. That's right -- I'd have to attack the very people using my software. Not the plugin authors, the users. Ironically, this means that selling a proprietary plugin is safer than hosting it. I wonder what Dries would think about that.
    - carussell 17y ago
      I believe the use case at hand is, given person Tom who has purchased a premium WordPress theme, is the theme a derivative work, allowing Tom to redistribute the theme to whomsoever he chooses?
tbrownaw 17y ago
> The GPL is pretty clear on this. I would consider WordPress themes as plugins to WordPress. And thus, we consult the GPL FAQ Which says things like "A consequence is that if you choose to use GPL'd Perl modules ... in your program, you must release the program in a GPL-compatible way", which we can see from the cases cited here (or just by reading the actual law) is clearly bogus. And there's no question of your binaries being derivative due to incorporating code derived from the module's header files (because Perl doesn't work that way).
dangrossman 17y ago
It doesn't matter what the GPL says if you're not bound by the GPL. You only become bound by the GPL by contract or, through the power of copyright, by creating a derivative work. If the law says you haven't created a derivative work, then nothing the GPL says matters to you, it has no power.

sethg 17y ago

We are all familiar with software licenses that place broad restrictions on what the customer can do (“you may not decompile, reverse-engineer, benchmark, or play FrisbeeⓇ with this Software...”), but if those restrictions have any legal effect at all, it is only because the license is in the form of a contract (“by clicking ‘I ACCEPT’ you agree to all the terms of this License...”) between the software vendor and the customer. The GPL is, by design, a license rather than a contract, and therefore it cannot forbid any action that copyright law permits. If indeed a WordPress premium theme is not a “derivative work” within the meaning of copyright law, then the GPL cannot touch it, regardless of the GPL author’s intent.

bricestacey 17y ago
I should preface this that I don't really know much about copyright law. The sticky point to me is that you could write WP themes as binaries called using fork/exec. So in essence, the developer's choice to use WP function calls and variables effectively makes it a derivate work, at least in my opinion. I'm not a big fan of this, though it makes the most sense in my mind (at least with my opinion mostly biased by the GPL). I remember reading Dries, the found of Drupal, effectively claiming that all Drupal modules were GPL'ed and not liking it so much that I have altered my plans for future Drupal modules (all the better for me, my intellectual property will not be open for all to witness as I intend a more hosted solution which I can charge a higher premium for). Ultimately, I feel like crusades by open source projects (WordPress, Drupal, etc) to GPL their modules will backfire and create a more restrictive, hosted component to them that they will ultimately regret. Dries did this for this anti-spam module, Mollom. I don't think he'd be so happy if core features like Views or CCK performed identically. Drupal would effectively suck. I guess thats all the more reason to reject the idea that plugins are derivative works.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  Remember that the GPL is a copyright license. This means that the only cases in which it matters are when the work is being distributed. The problem with trying to coerce plugin authors into using the GPL is that plugins are usually distributed separately from the core application. This means there's no legal justification for suing somebody who writes a proprietary plugin, because they're not participating in any action relevant to the GPL. If I wrote an application which supports plugins, and I wanted to prevent a particular non-GPL plugin from being used, the only legally justified way I could do so would be to sue my users. That's right -- I'd have to attack the very people using my software. Not the plugin authors, the users. Ironically, this means that selling a proprietary plugin is safer than hosting it. I wonder what Dries would think about that.
  - carussell 17y ago
    I believe the use case at hand is, given person Tom who has purchased a premium WordPress theme, is the theme a derivative work, allowing Tom to redistribute the theme to whomsoever he chooses?

tbrownaw 17y ago

> The GPL is pretty clear on this. I would consider WordPress themes as plugins to WordPress. And thus, we consult the GPL FAQ Which says things like "A consequence is that if you choose to use GPL'd Perl modules ... in your program, you must release the program in a GPL-compatible way", which we can see from the cases cited here (or just by reading the actual law) is clearly bogus. And there's no question of your binaries being derivative due to incorporating code derived from the module's header files (because Perl doesn't work that way).

dangrossman 17y ago

It doesn't matter what the GPL says if you're not bound by the GPL. You only become bound by the GPL by contract or, through the power of copyright, by creating a derivative work. If the law says you haven't created a derivative work, then nothing the GPL says matters to you, it has no power.