Important Change to the WordPress Template License

There’s a great read and discussion about this in here:

http://www.problogdesign.com/wordpress/will-the-gpl-kill-wordpress-development/

Collis, are you sure about the ‘HTML not being GPL ’ issue? What I took from this post was that since the HTML literally depends upon WordPress’ PHP for content, the HTML is also GPL ?

Also, I’m guessing ThemeForest won’t be featured in the WordPress.org Commerical Theme listings, since they only advertise sites selling 100% GPL themes.

Personally, I’m against WordPress’ decision to begin non-aggressively enforcing GPL on themes. From what I’m aware, the Joomla team (which is also GPL ) have taken a completely opposite stance on the issue. They believe by waiving their right to themes being GPL , they are encouraging Joomla theme development by encouraging more unique ideas. (don’t state me on this though, I only read it somewhere, and haven’t checked it).

I’d rather WordPress take up Joomla’s stance on this, but right now WordPress is the major blog/cms player, theme sales are good, and so I’ll be respecting their decision on this (and keeping my themes up for sale).

I’ll be honest I haven’t read every post in this thread so I am sorry if this has already been brought up, but what happens to all the people who are selling wordpress plugins then?

Web developers are generally honorable people who will respect your code.

Web developers usually are. Template/theme creators are not always quite as scrupulous.

Not to knock any authors here at TF specifically, I just know that anyone else who’s been in the template game for a while knows what I’m talking about. You run into more than a fair share of shady characters.

I’ll be honest I haven’t read every post in this thread so I am sorry if this has already been brought up, but what happens to all the people who are selling wordpress plugins then?

As far as I know, plugins have always fallen under the GPL ?

Guys, all this means is you need to be more creative with your work If you have an insanely awesome theme options page, start using some ajax to spice up the functionality a bit. Not only will you enhance the functionality of your theme options page (not to mention the speed of it), but it may also protect you in the event someone decides to repackage your theme options inside their own theme. Not only will your javascript be protected under a standard license, but you can also obfuscate and minify the theme options portion javascript so it can’t be modded (and could contain some obfuscated information on the theme options page so people would know what theme it came from).

I know most of you would say this shouldn’t be necessary to protect your themes but by choosing to develop themes for WordPress, you’re choosing to agree to the GPL license for PHP code that hooks into or relies upon WordPress’ functions which IS licensed under the GPL and is what allows you to develop themes for WordPress. Remember, this was all work completed under the GPL to allow you to build flexible themes.

There are ways to work with GPL and still protect your work, you’ve just got to work a little harder and be a little more creative with your theme’s architecture.

I have a problem downloading the license.zip file. The file cannot be open and said to be corrupted. Is there any of you having the same problem? Thanks.