[wp-hackers] General consensus of "Premium Theme" concept

[Jennifer Hodgdon]

Go read the license at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html and see 
what it says:

a) Any work derived all or in part from GPL work must still be GPL 
licensed. This includes plugins and themes that use any code from GPL 
plugins or themes, or from the Codex.

b) Anyone can distribute copies of GPL software for any price they 
want to, including for free. So you can sell your GPL plugin/theme, 
but your users can re-distribute it for free. You are under no 
obligation to distribute GPL software.

c) Anyone can modify GPL code, as long as the copyright and license 
remain in the code, along with a note stating you modified it, and it 
remains GPL-licensed.

I don't believe there is a theme in existence that doesn't contain 
some code derived from another WP theme or from the Codex (e.g. the 
loop code is pretty much standardized and is GPL). So my opinion is 
that all themes must be GPL licensed. There probably also isn't a 
plugin in existence that would escape GPL either, by being completely 
original, but maybe.

Usual disclaimer: I'm not an attorney, consult an IP attorney for a 
more definitive option.

     --Jennifer

-- 
Jennifer Hodgdon * Poplar ProductivityWare
www.poplarware.com

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