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WordPress Creator GPL Says WP Template Must Be GPL'd
An anonymous reader writes "Matt Mullenweg (the creator of open source blog software WordPress), after review by various legal experts, is sticking to his guns that themes and plugins that 'extend' WordPress violate the GPL if they are not themselves distributed under the GPL. Matt has gone so far as to post this on Twitter. According to Matt, the premium template called Thesis should be under the GPL and the owner is not happy about it. WordPress is willing to sue the maker of Thesis theme for not following GPL licensing. The webmasters and Thesis owners are also confused with new development. Mark Jaquith wrote an excellent technical analysis of why WordPress themes inherit the GPL. This is why even if Thesis hadn't copy-and-pasted large swathes of code from WordPress (and GPL plugins) its PHP would still need to be under the GPL."
Just goes to show that data vs code is a false dichotomy:
The programming language and data description language used should not affect where the split is.
This is even more obviously worse if you for example transfer your data as JSON, so that the data interchange language is the same as the programming language.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
IANAL, but I don't buy it.
The GPL is based on copyright.
If I sell a product that doesn't contain *any* of your copyrighted code (and API calls certainly can't be copyrighted), you have no basis to sue me for copyright.
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The idea of the GPL, at least the original idea, seemed to be that if you modified the code of a project and distributed that modified version, you also had to distribute the code. Ok, fair enough and easy enough to understand. So Linksys could go and use Linux on their routers, and they have to release the mods to Linux they make, but not any of the software they run on it.
However then you get things like this. A theme for something they now say has to be GPL. Not a new version of the software, a theme that adds in to it. Ummm ok. What about plugins, do those also have to be opened up? This leads to other worries, will GPL authors try and say if you use a GPL'd software to create something (like a picture with GIMP) that too has to be opened up?
That is some of the "viral" nature MS was bitching about. You GPL something and then you want to say everything it touches has to be GPL'd too.
I think people get a little miffed when they find that using GPL software got them more than they bargained for.
Even better, why don't Thesis just make a "templating engine" to handle the WP code that can then be released under GPL and then release the rest of the CSS, images, etc. under their own license? I can think of a couple of ways this could be accomplished and it would protect Thesis entirely.
From the WP "analysis" on one of the links in the summary...
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"My JS/CSS/Images are 100% original. Do they have to be GPL?
No, they don't. If they aren't based on GPL'd JavaScript, CSS, or images, you are not forced to make them GPL. What you could do is offer a theme under a split license. The PHP would be under the GPL, but other static resources could be under some other license."
****
That said, I'm a bit concerned about how this "it's a part of WP" will be interpreted because doesn't that then mean that commercial apps like Zend Studio, etc. are ALSO required to comply with the GPL since they ostensibly hook into the various GPL'ed libraries, etc. ??
I mean I'm all for GPL but if everything that so much as touches GPL'ed software falls under that license, we're going to find fewer and fewer people willing to create commercial apps for GPL OS'es, etc..and while I may not use it, we definitely don't need to go shooting ourselves in the foot at this stage of the game.
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The GPL is as clear as mud. Do you want an example? It says "derivative works" must be GPL as well. Well, what is a derivative work? Guess what? The GPL itself doesn't define that term. So there's huge debate as to if a block of code that uses nothing from the parent but fully documented and exposed APIs is derivative or not.
Obviously Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian; that much is clear... But is Internet Explorer a drivative of Windows (Taking aside the license for a minute)? It hooks into deep APIs (So deep in fact, that it cannot run on any other OS than Windows)... Parts of the core of Windows (Windows Update) depend upon it... It's a very difficult question to answer.
And this is why I hate the GPL. It promotes the "If you want to comply, you can do no wrong by licensing GPL" attitude. It's trivially easy to comply with, but it's VERY hard to make a clear determination if the restrictions extend to you or not. So most people "just take the easy way out" and license GPL. Not out of belief, not out of fear, not out of requirement, but out of confusion and misunderstanding...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Themes don't inherit the GPL. See the following article:
WordPress Themes, GPL, and Copyright Case Law
http://www.chipbennett.net/2010/07/wordpress-themes-gpl-and-copyright-case-law/
It's worse than that. If you RTFA, they make the claim that there are "external APIs" and "internal APIs", and using the former is perfectly fine and dandy, while using the latter makes your code a derived work. Since the classification is, effectively, arbitrary and subject to change at the whim of the author, this puts any software relying on any WordPress API at risk.
The "It's infectious" part makes him a troll or a moron.
In other words, a person who is telling the truth is a "troll or a moron"? You couldn't seriously believe that.
Under GPLv2, you would have been correct, as the term "distribute" has specific meaning in copyright law, a definition that would generally exclude moving copies of copyrighted material around within a company (so long as you do not give it to contractors or other companies working with you, IIRC, but my memory of those aspects of copyright law are kind of vague, so take that with a grain of salt).
The problem is that the term "distribution" isn't the term used by the GPLv3. The GPLv3 uses the term "propagate", and defines it as follows:
Clearly, putting it on multiple computers does constitute propagating, but as it is done by the IT person, only that IT person would retain the right to distribute further copies. Offering it for internal download, again, clearly qualifies. Why? Because without permission to copy something, making additional copies for additional machines would be a copyright violation.
The GPL is actually remarkably clear on this point; making something available to the general public is not required for the license to kick in, and internal distribution does count. The concern over internal distribution is legitimate, at least under GPLv3. Don't like that? Pick software with a better license next time, like GPL version 2.
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On the other hand, you can hardly argue that your module would be of much use to anyone without a Linux kernel to run it in, and you must have referenced the kernel source, or documentation derived from it, during the implementation, since the APIs don't exist anywhere else.
A derivative work must be _substantially similar_ to a pre-existing work to be considered derivative. Interface compatibility, no matter how obscure the interface, no matter how much access, no matter how much documentation, does not in and of itself make your work substantially similar to another work.
If you were making a clone of an existing module, or an entire application, source code access and substantial internal similarity would be prima facie evidence that you have created a derivative work. Interface compatibility without substantial internal similarity isn't even _relevant_.
17 USC 102(b) seems relevant here: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."
Matt M. claims that large portions of the Thesis theme includes cut-and-pastes of PHP code from WordPress GPL code.
I don't know exactly how much that is, but it's probably more than none whatsoever.
(Take it for what it's worth.)
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