General Licensing – Themes and Plugins

*Reads*

Where possible, please only use this thread to share personal experiences, authoritative information and links, and leave subjective opinion or legal interpretation at the door unless you’re a licensed attorney practicing in the area of digital copyright law. Thank you!

No.

*Drinks coffee*

So… I’m leaving this topic open for now but the moment someone posts about their experience then I’ll likely close it with a note.

Here’s why: these are support forums. These are not community opinion forums and most importantly, these are not anyone’s blog. Though we do have some really good software for that. 😉

If you have a problem with the software here, if you have a problem with the forums, if you want to make suggestions about how WordPress as a project is ran, how the plugins or themes get approved, etc. then there is a location here on this site to post that.

That’s not what this topic is about at all. “General Licensing – Themes and Plugins” is too vague and more importantly themes and plugins have well defined license terms already.

https://developer.ww.wp.xz.cn/themes/getting-started/wordpress-licensing-the-gpl/
https://developer.ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/#the-guidelines

If you license your code with just GPL and your theme or plugin passes the requirements for being hosted here then once approved your code will be listed in the repository and users will be able to download, open support topics, etc. I suggest a small celebratory cake after that, getting your gift to the community in the repo deserves that.

To kick off the thread, I want to share a link to a compatibility analysis of BY-SA 4.0 with GPL and ask if anyone has applied BY-SA 4.0 licenses to their creative works. And, if so, why they felt it was relevant.

Not to be too blunt but opinions outside of the theme or plugin team do not matter. An author may disagree with that, an author may make a case to use what others define as a “GPL Compatible” license but at the end of the day, it’s the theme or plugin team that makes that (very open and public) determination.

A forum topic isn’t going to change that and licensing is never a decision by public acclaim. The GPL terms are well defined and so are the requirements for being in the repo.

If you want to engage those teams then I suggest you do so in the ways defined by their make.ww.wp.xz.cn blogs.

Welcome

Welcome

If you want to get involved with those teams then please do! That’s encouraged.

This is the standard reply from the Support Handbook for GPL discussions.

The argument about whether or not WordPress and its themes and plugins are GPL is not something we’re qualified to debate here. Certainly WordPress is licensed under GPLv2, and all themes and plugins hosted on ww.wp.xz.cn are required to be GPLv2 compatible in their entirety, so you are free to edit and redistribute as you see fit. If code is not licensed as GPLv2 (or later) compatible, we ask that you not bring it up here for discussion.

Which is a good reply. And then the topic is closed. GPL conversations never go anywhere and get very passionate very quickly. I really don’t know why.

*Finishes coffee, coffee is good*

As I’ve written, I’ll leave this topic open for now. But you may want to ask in a completely different venue. These support forums are not for opinion topics like these.

This is a support topic.

I’m sorry, but Jan is correct. This is not a support topic, this is you wanting to have a random conversation about licensing. And that is not the purpose of these forums.

The forums are not for random discussion or debate or anything else along those lines. They’re for support and helping people with problems. Having a general chit-chat about licenses is outside the scope here.

Make a post on your own blog, talk in the comments there, or just post in the various reddits devoted to licensing issues. Not here. Just saying.

Why I’m doing it? Well, mainly because that’s actually my job. I work here, and I help run the plugins team as well as administrate this site and these forums.

I’m not certain what discussion you’re wanting to have, exactly, but I do know that this is probably not the appropriate place for you to have it. These are support forums, not a place for you to get opinions about licensing and legal matters.

Please take it to your own sites. You’re done here.

Edit: BTW, to answer the point in your original post: We do allow CC BY-SA 4.0 in the plugin directory. I announced that fact well over a year ago.

Creative Commons Licenses in the Plugin Directory