[wp-hackers] Plugin Licenses

[Computer Guru]

I have to agree here.
I develop free software and distribute it under my proprietary free software
license. Some is open source, some isn't.

But the fact of the matter is, my softwares have been downloaded several
million times, and if I relied on donations for bread and butter, I'd have
neither.

Thank god for real work.

Computer Guru
NeoSmart Technologies
http://neosmart.net/blog/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: wp-hackers-bounces at lists.automattic.com [mailto:wp-hackers-
> bounces at lists.automattic.com] On Behalf Of David Chait
> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 6:00 PM
> To: wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
> Subject: Re: [wp-hackers] Plugin Licenses
> 
> Matt Mullenweg wrote:
> > David Chait wrote:
> >> I'll put my vote +1 to a check-updates solution that does NOT depend
> >> on GPL-only repositories, and -100 otherwise... ;)
> >
> > The opinion of the FSF is that distributed plugins for WordPress also
> > fall under the GPL:
> >
> > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins
> >
> > I've met people who suggest their work is too good to "give away" as
> > Open Source software, but we're all lucky none of the contributers to
> > WordPress felt that way or we wouldn't be having this discussion
> today.
> >
> 
> I've never suggested my work is too good to "give away".  I have a
> family to feed, and need to recoup something on my time (I thank the
> people who DO 'donate', but it's too small, too far between).  I don't
> mind GPL terms.  I prefer LGPL in general though, and my own major
> plugins are all just 'non-commercial-use licensed'.
> 
> The opinion of the FSF is just an opinion.  It is not part of the GPL
> as
> language (though I heard newer GPL might start to delve into such
> topics).  The GPL is describing compiled code, and in fact code that
> has
> a very particular threshhold of integration.  It does not specifically
> cover 'plugins' for a web/interpreted language like PHP, or the issues
> therein, it does not cover with any level of specificity at what point
> a
> plugin would NOT have to be GPL (for instance, a photoshop-esque plugin
> is given a pointer to a memory/image buffer, and says 'go'...  I don't
> call that tight integration of internal structures and functions!).
> 
> I'm thankful for WP.  I've also contributed more than my share back
> over
> the years, and I'm not one of the many gainfully employed by it.  In
> the
> early days I tried to do more debugging/improvement side, now I'm lucky
> if I have time to help answer Qs in the forums! ;)  I have a number of
> plugins which I should go and put up in wp-plugins, as they're small
> enough, yet useful enough, that I'm happy to just share them.
> 
> But I also pretty early on separated my major plugins into a 'core' and
> a 'plugin stub'.  The core, in general, doesn't know a freaking thing
> about WP, could care less, could be integrated into any number of
> PHP-based systems.  For those without that separation, some of them
> have
> a tight integration, some of them don't.  Some might have example files
> of how one might more tightly integrate with a particular PHP system,
> like WP.
> 
> <soapbox>I also dislike some of the holier-than-thou I hear from
> GPL-ites who are either being paid to do their work (many of the
> significant GPL projects are by paid corporate staff or educational
> faculty), or significantly benefitting from it via other secondary
> means.  (That isn't to point at you Matt, I have no idea whether or any
> of the Automattic team have made money directly or indirectly off of
> WP... or what salaries you make... etc.)</soapbox>
> 
> And back to the original points someone made: I have no problem having
> my plugins hosted somewhere other than my server.  I'm not a control
> freak.  The code is PHP, it's all readable, if someone wanted to
> steal/lift from it they probably already have.  I just obviously can't
> host most of them on a GPL-only service.  So having a plugin manager,
> plugin checker, whatever, that only supports the GPL-only service is
> bad
> in my eyes, shortsighted, and actually a bit of a slap in the face...
> 
> -d
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