[wp-hackers] 500 euros for WP + plugins

[Amit Gupta]

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 "Matt Mullenweg" <m at mullenweg.com> wrote:
> I'm curious how people feel about this:
> http://www.semiologic.com/projects/sem-theme-pro/
what are you curious about? that someone's making money by way of WordPress? Or is he doing any violations of the license? or something else? :)
I doubt that its the first time someone's making money through WordPress. There are a lot of people who provide consultancy for WordPress and setup WordPress for clients for a fee. Its just that its the first time(as I see it) that someone is doing this in such an advertised way.


On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 "Firas D." <fd at firasd.org> wrote:
> Although that part about 'An entire collection of (debugged) third party
> plugins, all one click installs' does make my stomach churn a wee bit. 
> Which plugins, how debugged, going to share the source..?
is there any thing in GPL under which he's required to share the source if he modifies it? I don't think so!! As I understand GPL, it states that the person is required to give out the source of the application and any changes he makes, but he can do that at his own discretion!! He may agree to provide you the source and not to me, that's his choice, but nothing stops you from sharing it with me or anyone else, that's GPL's freedom. So why does it makes your stomach churn?


On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 "Peter Westwood" <peter.westwood at ftwr.co.uk> wrote:
> If the product _is_ support then it would seem above-board - the 
> wording though implies that you are paying for
> WordPress + 3rd party plugins rather than for support which I'm not 
> sure is above-board.
Yes, I don't think its above-board as well, as by what he's stating is that you are paying for the plugins/themes/wordpress, which under GPL can't be sold. Because an additional note on the page states that the buyer is on his own as far as support is concerned, unless he pays extra for the support. That I think is the violation of the GPL as you can't sell anything licensed under GPL for money or any other monetory gain. I think Matt should take this up with Denis reminding him that he's in violation of GPL.

> I would think it fair for him to sell plugins/themes that he has 
> created because to me that would be the equivalent of
> developing them specifically for a client to use and as such I don't 
> think they would need to be GPL/GPL Compatible
> licenced.
The licensing of Plugins & Themes has been discussed at the support forums.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/21169
I think that the Plugins & Themes should(must?) be GPL compatible as they use the WP code which is licensed under GPL. Earlier when we had just CSS based styles, it was ok to release those styles under any license that the author desires, but now that we have themes which have WP Code in them, then their licenses must be GPL compatible, the styles however can remain under any license as they don't use any WP code.
Besides, I think that he's mentioned the fact on that page that even his plugins & themes are GPLed, or did I read it wrong? So he can't sell them anyway.

I don't and wouldn't say that Denis is doing something wrong. He can do that, technically and ethically, and people who do don't like him doing this(or whine that instead of selling his code he should've released it to the community or anything like that) can take a hike, they are of no concern to anyone(not atleast to me). The idea of Open Source is afterall(as I understand it) is to combine collective efforts of more than 1 developers and create a product that is beneficial to them and then distribute it among them and other people. People who claim to be Open Source supporters & voice that everything should be Open-Sourced(to them, Open-Source is a synonym of FREE), they don't ever think what will happen if everything is made available for free. What will happen to companies like Microsoft, Apple, Sun etc. that spend millions & billions in research every year so that they can bring out new features, new stuff that we all love & cherish!! will these same people work for free full day/5 days a week? I don't think so, because if they do, how are they gonna pay their bills? Will the electricity company waive your bill b'coz you are an open-source contributor? Will the supermarts provide you with free food b'coz you develop free software(and if its running their online store and their billing system)?? I don't think so.

But what I think is that Denis should consider revising his words at that page(or any other page which is about selling his CMS) because those words imply that he's selling WP+Plugins+Themes which he can't as per GPL.

just my $0.02 on the topic. :)

-----
Amit Gupta

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