7 ms·

Trying my best not to sound rude, but Chris Pearson sounds extremely obnoxious. His analogies are all over the place and very defensive; most likely because he

by pavs 16y ago

Trying my best not to sound rude, but Chris Pearson sounds extremely obnoxious. His analogies are all over the place and very defensive; most likely because he realizes that he is on the wrong end of the debate. The license explicitly says it has to be GPL. End of discussion. He is making up his own rules!

babyboy808 16y ago
I honestly thought I was the only thinking this!
- pavs 16y ago
  Confirmed this guy is obnoxious: http://i.imgur.com/wffx2.png http://i.imgur.com/wffx2.png My respect for Matt just jumped ten-fold for being so calm with this guy and I am not even a fan-boy.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - freerobby 16y ago
    Agreed.
    - wingnutart 16y ago
      Chris was a jerk this entire interview. Over and over again he was ranting and shouting Matt down. Matt was superb throughout; calm, patient, and prepared. He had one blurt-out, while Pearson frantically dug his own grave. Totally agreed.
  - Concours 16y ago
    fully agree, I was impress from Matt, seems to be an extremely smart and calm Guy.
slantyyz 16y ago
Obnoxious or not, I think the point of contention is whether a theme can considered a derivative work or not. I think you can easily find lawyers who would have no trouble arguing either side of the case.
- pavs 16y ago
  So find me a lawyer (more than just a blog post) who have successfully contented against such a case. Did you watch the whole interview? His views has nothing to do with laws, nothing to do with grey areas within the license (from my understanding GPL is very explicit about this); he basically said "I don't wanna do this because, I don't wanna do this." How can you rationalize with that?
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    Look at the two links provided in one of my other comments pointing to perpetualbeta.com. That guy is an IP lawyer who provided some opinion that is not on the side of Wordpress. EDIT: Not many licenses have been challenged in court, including the GPL. Do you have any cases to cite in favor of GPL?
    - pavs 16y ago
      http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=GPL+case&qscrl=1 http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&#3...
    - slantyyz 16y ago
      From your search link, I don't see any results of cases where the infringement wasn't based primarily on redistribution of the original work. I don't think that Thesis is distributed with a copy of Wordpress. I definitely think it's a sketchier argument to make with a theme. Settlement of a case doesn't always mean that the defendant is going to lose either. It can also mean that the cost and distraction of a protracted suit makes it easier to swallow the cost of the settlement.
      - 16y ago
brockf 16y ago
Hahaha Chris is ridiculous. My favourite part is when he goes off on the massive tangent about his love of "systems" and just wants a "natural" flow. What is he even saying? He wants to make money and is scared to GPL. Fair enough. However, Matt and WordPress can sue him and they should. Stop these goofy debates and making Chris squirm awkwardly. Though it is kind of funny...
rick888 16y ago
"The license explicitly says it has to be GPL. End of discussion. He is making up his own rules!" The license does. However, I don't think his theme uses actual wordpress code beyond function calls. I would hardly call this a derivative work.
- Otto42 16y ago
  It does actually go deeper than that, but really that's beside the point. Function calls into the WordPress code is enough. WordPress has a public API... several of them, in fact. A theme doesn't use those, it makes direct calls to internal WP code, and it uses WordPress internal data structures. This is enough to make it a derivative work. From http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#MereAggregation http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#Me... : "Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they form a single larger program. If either part is covered by the GPL, the whole combination must also be released under the GPL—if you can't, or won't, do that, you may not combine them. What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged). If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program. By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program." Ultimately, it is a matter of interpretation, but all previous interpretation, including those made in courts of law, pretty much universally agree with Matt on this one. It's very difficult to consider a theme to be a "separate program" when it's deep-linking to internal functions and data structures and it also cannot run independently.
  - tzs 16y ago
    > Ultimately, it is a matter of interpretation, but all previous interpretation, including those made in courts of law, pretty much universally agree with Matt on this one. There have been no court cases I'm aware of that have dealt with this in the context of a GPL program. There are, however, numerous cases where the code being called was not GPL, and they have pretty much universally ruled that the FSF position is wrong--blob of code X calling into blob of code Y does NOT make X a derivative work of Y.
duck 16y ago
Exactly... and it is obvious the Chris came into this discussion with his mind set (and not open) and didn't listen to a single thing Matt said.
- rick888 16y ago
  "Exactly... and it is obvious the Chris came into this discussion with his mind set (and not open) and didn't listen to a single thing Matt said." Do you think Matt would have changed his mind either? From his tweets and past interviews, he doesn't seem like he will ever change is mind about derivative works.
  - tjogin 16y ago
    It seems to me that Matt went into it not wanting to sue, and is now considering it. That's a change of direction, if not opinion.
    - rick888 16y ago
      "It seems to me that Matt went into it not wanting to sue" He still hasn't changed one bit on his opinion of plugins/themes and the GPL.
      - tjogin 16y ago
        He wasn't really offered a compelling argument to do that, so that's no surprise.
        rick888 16y ago
        "He still hasn't changed one bit on his opinion of plugins/themes and the GPL." Well, matt wasn't offering a compelling argument for chris to release under the GPL either, so I guess they are even.
        tjogin 16y ago
Concours 16y ago
Mr. Chris Pearson , excuse me Sir, I don't want to be rude but you are an idiot, but the bad part of it: he doesn't even know it. Wordpress is GPL, everything build on Wordpress has to be GPL as the licence states. End of the discussion, he has to understand, it's not about what he wants or doesn't want, what he thinks or doesn't think, those are just the fact, you don't like it, go pick another platform. Mr. Chris Pearson , you are wrong, it's not about what you decide or not, those are the rules of GPL.
- lukevdp 16y ago
  I agree with this entirely. Chris is making his decisions based on what he thinks the rules should be rather than what the rules are

by pavs 16y ago

babyboy808 16y ago

I honestly thought I was the only thinking this!

pavs 16y ago
Confirmed this guy is obnoxious: http://i.imgur.com/wffx2.png http://i.imgur.com/wffx2.png My respect for Matt just jumped ten-fold for being so calm with this guy and I am not even a fan-boy.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- freerobby 16y ago
  Agreed.
  - wingnutart 16y ago
    Chris was a jerk this entire interview. Over and over again he was ranting and shouting Matt down. Matt was superb throughout; calm, patient, and prepared. He had one blurt-out, while Pearson frantically dug his own grave. Totally agreed.
- Concours 16y ago
  fully agree, I was impress from Matt, seems to be an extremely smart and calm Guy.

slantyyz 16y ago

Obnoxious or not, I think the point of contention is whether a theme can considered a derivative work or not. I think you can easily find lawyers who would have no trouble arguing either side of the case.

pavs 16y ago
So find me a lawyer (more than just a blog post) who have successfully contented against such a case. Did you watch the whole interview? His views has nothing to do with laws, nothing to do with grey areas within the license (from my understanding GPL is very explicit about this); he basically said "I don't wanna do this because, I don't wanna do this." How can you rationalize with that?
- slantyyz 16y ago
  Look at the two links provided in one of my other comments pointing to perpetualbeta.com. That guy is an IP lawyer who provided some opinion that is not on the side of Wordpress. EDIT: Not many licenses have been challenged in court, including the GPL. Do you have any cases to cite in favor of GPL?
  - pavs 16y ago
    http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=GPL+case&qscrl=1 http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&#3...
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    From your search link, I don't see any results of cases where the infringement wasn't based primarily on redistribution of the original work. I don't think that Thesis is distributed with a copy of Wordpress. I definitely think it's a sketchier argument to make with a theme. Settlement of a case doesn't always mean that the defendant is going to lose either. It can also mean that the cost and distraction of a protracted suit makes it easier to swallow the cost of the settlement.
    - 16y ago

brockf 16y ago

Hahaha Chris is ridiculous. My favourite part is when he goes off on the massive tangent about his love of "systems" and just wants a "natural" flow. What is he even saying? He wants to make money and is scared to GPL. Fair enough. However, Matt and WordPress can sue him and they should. Stop these goofy debates and making Chris squirm awkwardly. Though it is kind of funny...

rick888 16y ago

"The license explicitly says it has to be GPL. End of discussion. He is making up his own rules!" The license does. However, I don't think his theme uses actual wordpress code beyond function calls. I would hardly call this a derivative work.

Otto42 16y ago
It does actually go deeper than that, but really that's beside the point. Function calls into the WordPress code is enough. WordPress has a public API... several of them, in fact. A theme doesn't use those, it makes direct calls to internal WP code, and it uses WordPress internal data structures. This is enough to make it a derivative work. From http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#MereAggregation http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#Me... : "Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they form a single larger program. If either part is covered by the GPL, the whole combination must also be released under the GPL—if you can't, or won't, do that, you may not combine them. What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged). If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program. By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program." Ultimately, it is a matter of interpretation, but all previous interpretation, including those made in courts of law, pretty much universally agree with Matt on this one. It's very difficult to consider a theme to be a "separate program" when it's deep-linking to internal functions and data structures and it also cannot run independently.
- tzs 16y ago
  > Ultimately, it is a matter of interpretation, but all previous interpretation, including those made in courts of law, pretty much universally agree with Matt on this one. There have been no court cases I'm aware of that have dealt with this in the context of a GPL program. There are, however, numerous cases where the code being called was not GPL, and they have pretty much universally ruled that the FSF position is wrong--blob of code X calling into blob of code Y does NOT make X a derivative work of Y.

duck 16y ago

Exactly... and it is obvious the Chris came into this discussion with his mind set (and not open) and didn't listen to a single thing Matt said.

rick888 16y ago
"Exactly... and it is obvious the Chris came into this discussion with his mind set (and not open) and didn't listen to a single thing Matt said." Do you think Matt would have changed his mind either? From his tweets and past interviews, he doesn't seem like he will ever change is mind about derivative works.
- tjogin 16y ago
  It seems to me that Matt went into it not wanting to sue, and is now considering it. That's a change of direction, if not opinion.
  - rick888 16y ago
    "It seems to me that Matt went into it not wanting to sue" He still hasn't changed one bit on his opinion of plugins/themes and the GPL.
    - tjogin 16y ago
      He wasn't really offered a compelling argument to do that, so that's no surprise.
      - rick888 16y ago
        "He still hasn't changed one bit on his opinion of plugins/themes and the GPL." Well, matt wasn't offering a compelling argument for chris to release under the GPL either, so I guess they are even.
        tjogin 16y ago

Concours 16y ago

Mr. Chris Pearson , excuse me Sir, I don't want to be rude but you are an idiot, but the bad part of it: he doesn't even know it. Wordpress is GPL, everything build on Wordpress has to be GPL as the licence states. End of the discussion, he has to understand, it's not about what he wants or doesn't want, what he thinks or doesn't think, those are just the fact, you don't like it, go pick another platform. Mr. Chris Pearson , you are wrong, it's not about what you decide or not, those are the rules of GPL.

lukevdp 16y ago
I agree with this entirely. Chris is making his decisions based on what he thinks the rules should be rather than what the rules are