WordPress.org bans Themeforest members from participating in official WordCamp gatherings

VF said

Typps said
I say it’s a solid 50/50 ^^

Lets comeback to technical discussions atleast from this point. The contribution part is completely absent in Envato (so far), not as PHP but as a front end benefit. As a developer, I would agree it is little unfair. Considering the gain (not commercially but as a framework) we get in the backend – what we contribute as front end is zero due to closed source (only our buyer gains – it just stops there). I noticed many times they point repeatedly something like “If you remove the artwork and CSS files, what remains?”

what remains ? The client is retained. The same client then proposes wordpress to his business associates and friends, raving about how cool wordpress is, I mean look at this place here and what you can get wordpress to do with some of these plugins and themes and the prices are cheap!

On the other hand, if the client didn’t find what they were looking for, they’d sadly conclude that wordpress is too limiting -> who then told friends wordpress sucks -> who then recommended something else but first said, don’t use wordpress…

A square 50/50.

^ I am not talking about referral. Just think in terms of code and technical assets.

Remember, we are still talking about spirit of something (not as matt or someone’s view) but in terms of an average developers view.

VF said
^ I am not talking about referral. Just about code and technical assets.

Why ? This is not referrals. It’s all relevant and needs to be included in the equation.

Contributions aren’t code only. People contribute in dozens of ways. Someone could be writing code, some documentation and some can be filling a niche in market demand. They are all equally important.

I’m an average developer and that’s my view

Caldazar said
Imagine WordPress threatening to go full proprietary vs. you threatening them to stop creating and selling themes if you have to go full libre.

Easy. If WordPress wasn’t an open platform, another would emerge and consumers and authors would carry on. In fact, after seeing the glorious rise and fall of Flash, if WordPress was my business I’d be doing everything possible to grow the brand, and that means showing love to all developers—event the ones who would rather not hand over full rights to their work.

Typps said

VF said
^ I am not talking about referral. Just about code and technical assets.

Why ? This is not referrals. It’s all relevant and needs to be included in the equation.

Contributions aren’t code only. People contribute in dozens of ways. Someone could be writing code, some documentation and some can be filling a niche in market demand. They are all equally important.

I’m an average developer and that’s my view

Sorry, I meant developer’s context – this is what we miss on the discussion and so easily slip into other discussions. For an open source community (that chose GPL instead of MIT) – the priority / expectation on contribution would be obviously in term of code part and may not just stop with other kind of supports; of cource they may need those to survive but not necessarily top priority than code and its distribution.

Well, “referrals = giving back” is pretty much the pirate’s top argument. While this is true and should be part of a venture’s strategic considerations, saying that you’d owe pirates anything, be it an explanation for how you use your own software, would be quite bold methinks.

That said, I fully agree with Collis asking where .org ends and .com begins, that’s a fair question. But demanding them to give account of their small commercial part in a “hey young man, I’m talking to you”-style at best, i don’t know. They don’t owe you and if they decide to tell you exactly that, how would you asses your position then?

Caldazar said
Well, “referrals = giving back” is pretty much the pirate’s top argument. While this is true and should be part of a venture’s strategic considerations, saying that you’d owe pirates anything, be it an explanation for how you use your own software, would be quite bold methinks. That said, I fully agree with Collis asking where .org ends and .com begins, that’s a fair question. But demanding them to give account of their small commercial part in a “hey young man, I’m talking to you”-style at best, i don’t know. They don’t owe you and if they decide to tell you exactly that, how would you asses your position then?

Calling developers here pirates because they want to retain ownership of code they’ve written is not only wrong but rude! Please take it back or rephrase.

Who told you this is a referral program ? Is this why you want to sell your items here ? I don’t think so. We fill market demand, that in turn works as referrals in wordpress’s favor, which is a byproduct and a completely different subject matter

Let’s be frank, nobody owe’s nothing to anybody which is exactly the point you need to understand. The comparison was done earlier to prove a point that our collaboration is quite valid and by you trying to quantify it will only diminish FOSS.

So, now one has to contribute back equal amounts of [code and only code] in order to use free and opensource software ?

Edit: Ahh, now i see what you mean by pirates. Well, that’s like comparing apples to oranges. Piracy is illegal, hence moot point. Why should we even discuss this here ?

Piracy is illegal, hence moot point.

Technically you’re doing exactly the same as pirates, except it’s explicitly allowed. Why? Because WordPress gave you the permission as a gift out of the goodness of their hearts, before Envato even existed.

How they choose to use their own software has nothing to do with what they accept you doing with their software.

Even if using it like they do was like distributing a half-proprietary derivate, even if such behaviour could be considered unfair between equals (which I doubt), even then it still would be none of your business, because you aren’t equals.

They even could make Wordpress.com completely proprietary, still absolutely fine and fair, because they are the copyright holders and can do however they like, including demanding a different behaviour from you.

It’s their own and they chose to gift you a licence for free. That’s the basis of everything we’re talking here, even when we talk about your contributions back to WP.

Who are you to call us pirates? WordPress is open source, we can do whatever we want with it and the source code, we don’t have to ask permission from anyone, you’re not an author, not a buyer, you have no rights to make us pirates and accuse us of anything.

Caldazar said

Piracy is illegal, hence moot point.

No, that being the only difference between apples (illegal) and oranges (legal) is actually my point in a nutshell.

Technically you’re doing exactly the same as pirates, except it’s explicitly allowed. Why? Because WordPress gave you the permission as a gift out of the goodness of their hearts, before Envato even existed.

How they choose to use their own software has nothing to do with what they accept you doing with their software.

Even if using it like they do was like distributing a half-proprietary derivate, even if such behaviour could be considered unfair between equals (which I doubt), even then it still would be none of your business, because you aren’t equals.

They even could make Wordpress.com completely proprietary, still absolutely fine and fair, because they are the copyright holders and can do however they like, including demanding a different behaviour from you.

It’s their own and they chose to gift you a licence for free. That’s the basis of everything we’re talking here, even when we talk about your contributions back to WP.

what ? you killllllllllllllllled my brain

Thanks for ruining what was otherwise a pretty good discussion!