Some of the most intense debates I've seen in the open source community have been discussions covering what is or what isn't required by the popular open source license, the GNU GPL. For example, it is common practice in the open source CMS market to distribute themes that include the templates (the code) under the GPL and the artwork (including CSS) under a different license. Under the GPL, is this practice legal or not?
On opposite ends of the GPL debate are staunch supporters for and against the GPL. Someone usually argues that distributed theme packages for a GPL licensed CMS must always be distributed under the GPL. To do anything else would be illegal. Another person will usually argue that the time and money the theme developer put into a theme gives him or her the right to distribute the theme any way they wish. When the discussion has finally reached this level of completely opposing views, the sparks will fly.
This time around it was the Wordpress community that found itself asking the various legal questions. Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress asked the Software Freedom Law Center for some legal clarification on the GPL issue. Today, Matt posted an article with the law center's response and provides his own input too. The truth can be found somewhere in the middle.
If WordPress were a country, our Bill of Rights would be the GPL because it protects our core freedoms. We’ve always done our best to keep WordPress.org clean and only promote things that are completely compatible and legal with WordPress’s license. There have been some questions in the community about whether the GPL applies to themes like we’ve always assumed. To help clarify this point, I reached out to the Software Freedom Law Center, the world’s preeminent experts on the GPL, which spent time with WordPress’s code, community, and provided us with an official legal opinion. One sentence summary: PHP in WordPress themes must be GPL, artwork and CSS may be but are not required.
You can see Matt's post which includes the letter from Software Freedom Law Center on the Wordpress Blog.
It's good to point out that while people and commercial companies are able to distribute and promote GPL themes with non-GPL artwork, a number of open source projects won't do so. For example, Wordpress.org will only promote commercially supported themes if they are distributed 100% under GPL, including artwork and CSS.
The reasons for not hosting anything but GPL projects varies from project to project. However, I think one of the better reasons for allowing only GPL files through the door is to keep it simple.
Open source projects distributing software have a difficult enough time managing and abiding by the terms of their license. When you throw in a varying number of additional licenses for the same software package, such as a Wordpress theme, the burden for any project to abide by all those licenses significantly increases. The last thing open source volunteers want for their project are additional burdens.
Note: This story was revised from an earlier version for expansion and clarification. Also, credit to Mike Johnston, CMS Critic, for getting parts of this story out first.
Comments
This issue came up in the
This issue came up in the Joomla! community a while back when they decided to adopt a "GPL-Only" policy. And same conclusion was reached, i.e., "PHP in Joomla! templates must be GPL, artwork and CSS may be but are not required."
And, although I am much too lazy to determine the exact source, I distinctly remember this issue being discussed on the Drupal forums too, with much the same conclusion being reached.
Wonder how many times and how many open source projects are going to "revisit" this issue? Seems to me this horse has long ago been beaten to death!
Yes, I think every community
Yes, I think every community faces the GPL and other licensing questions.Eventually it does get old, but then of course there is always a new crop of community members coming through the ranks and looking for answers.
I generally stay clear of licensing discussions these days. I only brought this one up with Wordpress because it's reaching to a conclusion. Plus, I don't ever recall in all GPL discussions as nice of a write up as the one given by James Vasile from the Software Freedom Law Center.
WP Guru Rebuttal
With a number of posts surfacing that are slanted toward anti-GPL for Wordpress, Matt offers a rebuttal in his post, Not Lonely at All.
Personally, I think this is all silly. If you are a developer that doesn't like GPL...then just don't use GPL software. There are lots of open source and propriety licenses out there and lots of differing business models to go with those licenses. As long as choice in software and software licenses in the marketplace is available...it's all good in my eyes.