Good discussion.

“bad name”: i don’t understand waht you mean my english is not perfect so if you can explain what you mean……..

Non-profits that CAN afford to pay a developer but instead ask for free items or discounts give non-profits like yours a bad name (I realize you really could benefit from their services). If I were you, I would write an email explaining what you do and what you need, and send that to some of the premium theme developers… I hope they can help you.

If not, you may find that their business is busy helping other non-profits in their areas of business. The same developers who don’t give you their work for free may spend 10 hours a month working for free for their local Red Cross or UCP. Don’t write them all off. :)

At what point, if at all, am I ethically able to release Revolver as a free WordPress theme? Or, how much modification is necessary before the theme is freed from it’s restrictive non-distribution license?

And the owners of the theme he paid for throw a hissy and even threaten to sue him? From what I read, Ashley wasn’t threatening to release the theme, just posing a question about a much discussed topic in the WP community.

What a way to shoot yourself in the foot, Brian Clark! The way you and Chris responded to this post revealed more about your own character than Ashley’s. All you accomplished was to make yourselves look like tools as well as lose at least one customer. I used to recommend your blog to people wanting/needing to learn about copywriting. From now on, I’ll save them the trouble and point them toward someone who isn’t a complete and total hack. I’m sure Gary Halbert would appreciate the traffic, if he were still around.

And if not, if they want/need to “stand on the shoulders of giants”, a GPL platform developed, marketed, popularized, and supported freely, shouldn’t they have to make some concessions to the share and share alike environment?

Make a good living by all means, but if they don’t want their code to be GPL, want exclusive “I’ll sue you” rights over it, should they really be in the GPL side of things?

I mean, isn’t the whole idea of developing GPL software that it stay GPL? It seems to me custom themers want it both ways, get the benefits of a thriving GPL community to build 90% of the product/demand then tweaking it here and there and selling it as an “in-house” privately owned software package.

“At what point, if at all, am I ethically able to release Revolver as a free WordPress theme?”

What about releasing Revolver to people who can demonstrate that they’ve already bought a copy of Thesis? It’s not mass distribution, it’s free, Chris gets the funds he’s entitled to, the Thesis community benefits…win win win.

I’d be interested to hear what Chris thought about this. Maybe he’d be interested in setting up a restricted site where people could make+post mods of Thesis and distribute them to people who’ve already bought a copy.

As you say, if we go down that route WordPress moves closer to being closed source, something that would be unthinkable and very detrimental to everyone within the community.

Many people will not be happy until themes are freely distributable. That is why Alister and many others feel that the paid support route is a much more intelligent one to take.

I think that Chris and Brian’s position is that Thesis is 100% untouchable in terms of redistribution just because they say so. I don’t think you, or anyone else, would agree with that.

yes it is true i didn’t saw premium themes, i just had lot of work to fix “premium” themes for clients, with plugin style of illusions, and little confusions here and there about there quality. Naturally we find also lot of very happy people who use them, as we find very happy people who use free themes.

But lets get to the point about money Nathan.
We have a non profit association in France with clients without money in the mountains, who never used internet before and we build sites for them, we would be very happy to see some sign of support from rock stars….can you support our association with some of your real premium themes? Naturally we don’t use them just for people who don’t have money to buy, and you can save at least an hour of work for us?…………..and support the use of wp and wp by itself?
To be in balance and find your place in the open source community by helping who don’t have?
Please?
That would be sign of moral and balance with a thankful attitude to the people who was building something what you can build on.

(i guess you will not give, but i’m open to be informed about i’m wrong))

So since Brian was the guinea pig for that model, and has now gone away from it after realizing he could sell his themes, it just shows you that the model wasn’t viable enough.

Since the XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript can stand on its own, without WordPress powering it, using any of that and selling it is certainly against the law. If you have modified it significantly, then maybe you can pass it off as your own. Maybe.

The PHP in Thesis is not all WordPress – a significant amount of it is custom written. Just like the CSS and XHTML, it could stand alone and power a site. Did Chris use WordPress functions to make it work? Of course – it’s a WordPress theme. Does that mean you can resell his work?

Your argument analogizing writing code for WordPress and trying to copyright that doesn’t fly – you are generalizing quite a bit. Can’t I sell the Rails application I wrote, even though Rails is an open source project?

I don’t really think so. Brian, Chris, myself, or any other owner of a proprietary WordPress theme, has any problem saying that people are allowed to use the_content(), the_permalink(), or any other WordPress function. But those function calls are SUCH a miniscule portion of a theme. Like I said, strip out the Thesis code, and you’re left with Kubrick. So why not just start with Kubrick?

This is one of the major flaws that comes with applying the GPL to a “program” written in PHP. It’s nearly impossible to NOT have duplicate methods among developers when performing tasks. 2 developers may use the exact same method to achieve a goal … one of them copyrights his work, the other applies the GPL. Same code (or at the very least, similar). Does that mean that nobody, including the first developer, is allowed to use that code in a proprietary work? Of course not.

The same goes for CSS.

Fact is, the GPL was NEVER intended to be applied to web languages, for this very reason. And that’s why it would never hold up in court (IMO). That is also why every time the word “court” is brought up, people start talking about “intentions” and “spirit” of the license, for what it’s worth.

Correction. That link has been removed. It doesn’t affect the GPLness of his themes, he’s just not giving them away for free anymore. (you are allowed to sell GPL software, BTW).

Just wanted to clear that up. But he’s certainly within his rights. Remember, GPL is free as in speech, not necessarily as in beer.

“The way to win with Brian is to rally the open source troops against Thesis.”

Maybe so. But that, in large part, has already happened. Open source advocates don’t buy premium themes (mostly). And you’d have a very hard time convincing any Thesis (or my employer, iThemes) customers to jump ship. They love the products they get, and the service they’re given. They’re not about to abandon quality products and experience just because a few people tell them to.

The fact is, good premium theme developers deliver the goods to their customers at a reasonable price. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to convince them to ditch a good thing.

Nathan – I’m still waiting to see if Brian agrees with you. Trouble is, he can’t agree with you without agreeing to the theme being redeveloped and redistributed, albeit without the superfluous code.

You’ve backed him into a corner. If he agrees with you he acknowledges that Thesis is partly open source, if he doesn’t agree then he just opens himself up to another wave of criticism.

That’s the kind of thing that happens when you take open source code and apply an artificial and restrictive license to it.

Rhett – I’m amazed that Brian and Chris have as many subscribers as they do. Especially since they can’t even handle an intelligent discussion without yelling and reaching for the nearest copy of Law For Dummies.

John – Thanks. You’re music industry analogy could be used both ways. Isn’t Thesis just a WordPress open source CD wrapped up in a new case?

Alister – Thanks. I’m not worried about Brian, not in the slightest. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve asked him some uncomfortable questions and that’s annoyed the hell out of him.

You are absolutely correct about the need to rally the open source troops. I guess that’s the next logical step.

Now, I am the last to want to block someone for commercial gain. I’m mostly a capitalist and I’m so keen to see WordPress support a thriving and healthy developer and designer community around it… people making money to support themselves, at least.

What is SO disappointing here is the GPL holds NO legal weight at all. No case law, as Brian points out. Nothing. Lawyer-types mock it, for good reason, as I understand.

So, the GPL can’t stand its ground legally (I suspect), but it can/should stand its ground on the strength of community sentiment it should rally against those who contravene its INTENT.

I think, therefore, that the GPL is only as strong as the community of open-source developers for whom it was developed. Hence Matt taking certain actions at certain times against “premium” theme developers.

My disappointment with Brian and Chris (Brian moreso, since he’s the business brain behind the operation), is that they don’t need to grow a business leaving ANY casualty behind… and Brian Gardner (Revolution2) proves this.

Contrary to comments here, Revolution2 sure is GPL, except that the “free” link is very small and easy to miss, in favour of the “supported version” purchase link… but it sure is there and available.

Revolution2 proves that you can give code away for free under the GPL, yet people will still pay for support (access to help, email support, a wiki, custom dev, etc.).

You’re generating a lot of heat here, Ashley — and the conversation is important — but I don’t think you want to take on Brian Clark.

The way to win with Brian is to rally the open source troops against Thesis. (Not that I can talk, since I purchased it some time back for some “quick” client sites and to look at what all the fuss was about.) Us GPL purists should be pressuring Brian and Chris to release Thesis under the GPL and to switch to a “paid support” model as has Brian Gardner.

I see no other way. GPL can’t be defended legally, I suspect. It can only be defended by the weight of community pressure. All the best things work that way, I think.

-Alister