Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
WordPress is distributed underneath the GPL license and as far as I can tell (I am not a lawyer), this means that to the only obligations a user has of that software are:
– Withhold the same GPL license;
– Not to claim the software as their own.
Solomon –
If you’re building a responsive site using WordPress as the platform, then perhaps the way around that is to license your work as a theme. Regardless of whether or not you sell the theme moving forward, you’d prevent your client from taking your work and profiting off of it.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is my own personal understanding of it all. 🙂
Therefore can I say that the website build using wordpress belongs to my software company?
The only things that you can lay any claim to are a custom theme that you’ve devleoperd (along with any associated graphics, and media), and any custom plugins that you’re created.
As far as ownership and licensing, WordPress is distributed under the GPL, and that means that any themes or plugins also must be licensed under the same license. That means that you can still charge for the development (GPL != “free”), but you will assign the rights of that code to the client as well – as long as they also adhere to the GPL license conditions.
