[wp-hackers] A question about donation link

scribu scribu at gmail.com
Thu Jan 14 23:50:31 UTC 2010


Several plugins hosted on Extend that I use have a donation button on their
settings page, so I think it's only fair to allow the same thing for themes.

___
http://scribu.net


On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 1:44 AM, Jordi Canals <jcanals at alkivia.net> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> From long time ago, I maintain a theme for WordPress, this theme always had
> a small line at the page footer with the text "Theme design by
> [project-name] project." with a link to the site where information, support
> and documentation about the theme can be found.
>
> In December, as a new customization option, I decided to include a checkbox
> on the theme options page to allow users to remove the credits line,
> followed by a link to suggest a donation. That locked like this:
>
> [] Disable public theme credits.
> If disabling the credits, please, consider <a href="%s">donating to the
> project</a>
>
> Because of this donation link, the new theme version was rejected on the
> themes site, as them considered the donation link as a licensing option.
> The theme is 100% GPL and has no licensing options, it's just GPL. I think
> that asking users to consider donating to the project if them remove the
> credits footer it's something reasonable and asking to consider donating
> cannot be considered a licensing option.
>
> So, I've been forced to remove the donation link and still telling the site
> admin there is no commercial version of the theme and that I don't have any
> licensing option for it, The theme is just licensed under the GPL terms and
> there is no option for any other license.
>
> Having this kind of trouble because a donation link that have been removed,
> really discourages to continue writing and maintaining WordPress themes and
> plugins. I've been waiting from December 18 for the theme to be published
> and some time lost in email discussions about the link. The donation link
> was removed on December 19, as soon as them told me that could not be
> accepted, but any release from them have been published because of it.
>
> Do you think the donation link violates the GPL license and can be
> understood as a licensing option?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jordi Canals.
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