UPDATE: Please also read the follow-up post here.
It’s great to see theme developers doing the right thing and releasing their themes under the GPL. Examples: WooThemes, Revolution.
The GPL v2 has the following clause in it (right at the top – emphasis mine):
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
The GPL v3 has a similar clause (again, emphasis mine):
4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.
You may convey verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with charging for GPL’ed themes (not making them available for free), if I receive a theme under the GPL I can then redistribute it (for free or for a fee) as a right granted by the GPL.
So I can then choose to set up site where I make all of the GPL licensed themes that I purchased available for free download, under the terms of the GPL.
The GPL also allows for derivative works.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: […]
So I can make a few changes to the themes (for example, port parts of them to the Carrington framework for easier development and modification), and distribute those as well.
Yay for software freedoms!
I purchased all of the WooThemes and StudioPress themes this morning. Which should I do first, set up free distribution of these GPL themes or start integrating the Carrington CMS theme framework into them? 😉
Ha! That’s … hilarious?
I think more skins for Carrington would be pretty sweet.
And so the only stipulation that you have to comply with is keeping a copyright notice in the source code of the redistributed FREE themes?
Although at first I was sad you didn’t include iThemes (yes, we’re GPL too) in your blog post, I think by just opening up this door to your right (as you are free to do so) isn’t setting a great precedent as I’d wish such an awesome GPL contributor like yourself would do. (I’ve referred clients your way because of the respect I have for you.)
If I did that with your code, I’d at least ask first (even though it’s technically your right to do so without asking) … before including in our themes OR at the very least publishing a post like this and opening up the wild wild west.
What it does for someone like us (those who just switched to GPL) is confirm the fears and reservations that we’ve had for a long time.
Keep in mind, that we still want to make a living at this and be around for the long haul. And that rewarding the original contributor (yes, with your pocketbook as you did, but also encouraging others to do so) is something of value to those of us trying to earn a living with WordPress.
@Chris – correct, all copyright information, credits, etc. would be properly maintained – as required by the GPL.
@Cory – I haven’t done anything (yet) but people redistribute modified versions of my plugins and themes all the time without asking me. This is their right under the GPL and I would be hypocritical to ask them not to enjoy the freedoms I granted.
If I don’t do this, someone else will – and sooner rather than later IMO.
@Cory Miller – I’m a bit confused by your comment, especially after you just told the community that you’re releasing all your themes under the GPL.
I have a lot of respect for what you’ve done with iThemes and am glad you’ve moved to the GPL, but what your comment sounds like to me is that you’re not fully embracing the GPL and what can be accomplished with it. One of the major reasons to license your work under the GPL is so that people can do exactly what Alex is talking about doing in this post. It’s a beautiful thing when one’s work can evolve into something greater through open source and be distributed back to the community.
@Alex – I’d love to see a mixture of the Carrington framework with some of the themes. It’s great that more people are moving toward the GPL and allow these sort of things. It makes for better themes.
Feel free to take any of my themes at ThemeHybrid.com and mix them with Carrington, redistribute them, and do whatever you want.
I think that people selling GPL themes will have to start taking into account that other sites will have them available for free.
This means that you really have to sell the support and also build up more customer loyalty for them to make a purchase instead of getting the theme for free.
It just changes the value the theme seller has to provide. It will be interesting to see how the theme market changes over the next few months.
@Alex – I agree with most everything you’ve said, but just because someone else does it, doesn’t me you should.
BUT … I never said “can’t.” 🙂
And I’d never lump you into those shareware sites who buy themes (GPL or not) and then issue chargeback refunds (fraud) then post them on eBay, or those other sites.
@Justin – I appreciate that, and ditto! You’re another contributor that I highly value.
I’ve tried very hard to learn and appreciate the open source ideology and mindset …. and we ARE fully 100% GPL compliant (we still sell those themes though, which as Alex said is compliant) ….
But what you have to fully understand is that … underpinning all this … is that our business feeds 5 families. (3 in OKC, 1 in South Carolina and 1 in the Netherlands)
We don’t have any other gigs … this is it. We are supported 100% by our theme business.
And when respected members of the community actively PROMOTE buying, then re-releasing themes, it just causes me to scratch my head.
(Not that you can’t! I’m not trying to somehow limit your freedom.)
But, I wish there were more conscious thought behind all that …
Freedom comes at a price.
Our decision wasn’t made overnight. It’s one I’ve struggled with for almost two years now. And I’m committed to.
But I didn’t come to it lightly. And I would just ask you and Alex and others to do the same. That’s it. 🙂
I fully understand GPL and everything that goes with it. I understand the philosophy behind it. But I have to say this post removed every bit of respect I had for Alex. I’m a little bit sick to my stomach right now having read it.
I’m sure Alex couldn’t care less, and there’s no real reason he should. But I’m greatly disappointed.
This post is a little tongue-in-cheek, but is intended to illustrate the point that it clearly has: while these themes appear to be GPL by the letter of the law, I am not sure they are embracing it fully in spirit.
@Cory Miller – You obviously have to look at things from a business standpoint.
One of the reasons I said I’d love for Alex to take my themes and build from them is strictly business. When you get a respected community member to take notice of your work and build from it, it can be a great thing. Sure, that developer would take some business from you, but he’d also send people to you through the themes themselves and likely through links back to your site.
Like you, I struggled for a long time on the GPL issue, but ever since I went all in, there’s been nothing but good things.
Anyway, good luck with the big change you guys are going through. I hope it works out for the best.
I frankly don’t understand why this is drawing out some heated responses.
I have the utmost respect for the developers involved and the people who left comments above. And, of course, I want to see a strong community of developers flourish around WordPress, a platform I love. What’s more, I want to see those developers who’s work I admire be able to run thriving businesses around the work they love doing.
This hubbub around the free distribution of GPL software seems like a non-issue to me, though. Releasing your work under the GPL is a voluntary choice. The person who chooses it elects to grant the user, in no uncertain terms, the rights outlined in it.
It’s not the only way to do things. You could choose to release work under a number of other licenses, or no license at all. It is completely up to you.
I’ll take the liberty of paraphrasing the two positions I see stated above:
“I built this. I’m giving it to you with these freedoms. Have fun!”
“I built this. I’m giving it to you with these freedoms, but don’t use these freedoms (please).”
Early on, WordPress’ developers chose to give their software away with certain freedoms. Now it’s a thriving development ecosystem and we can take part in that ecosystem if we want by sharing our work with the community. If you don’t want to do that, there are lots of other cool ecosystems to choose from. But, you can’t get the benefit of the community without becoming part of the community.
“I’m a little bit sick to my stomach right now having read it.”
Doesn’t that exactly illustrate the point?
I just lost all of my respect for you Alex.
You are considered a leader in the WordPress community, but yet you come out with a post like this, even if it is to state a point, shows a rather disturbing attitude on your part and TOTAL lack of respect for your peers.
The fact that you even opened this discussion shows a lot of disrespect and even jealousy of the other theme developers.
I think you are just trying to get attention for your own theme.
Sad, very sad.
Funny you posted this today, I unknowingly posted a similar topic in the WP Tavern today (http://bit.ly/W61tk) and was directed here by Justin.
I find it interesting that there is some backlash in the comments about this issue. I don’t think this has anything to do with a “lack of respect” on Alex’s part. Alex is using hyperbole to illustrate an important point about fully embracing the GPL and everything that comes along with it. If you took him too literally, you obviously missed the point.
So let me get this straight – the theme builders are releasing themes under the GPL license, but are basically asking you not to actually USE any of the freedoms the GPL license gives you?
I’m glad someone called “the emperor has no clothes” on this racket.
Which theme builders are asking you to not to actually USE any of the freedoms the GPL license gives you?
This is the same as if I had to ask Matt Mullenweg if I could use WordPress on one of my clients project.
We all use WordPress in any way we want without asking anyone.
For exemple: if I want I could get the 2.8 release of WordPress rename it to Press28 or whatever, extend it and build a new software from it.
I can also sell this new software for $1000.00 if I want.
And I don’t have to ask anyone about this.
This is the Freedom of OpenSource.
Alex, Justin, Nathan and Gordon are the only ones that got it.
And never forget: WordPress was built from the code of another OpenSource software – b2 cafelog.
@Cory – if you are not comfortable with people making dericative works of your themes without paying you a dime then you shouldn’t have released your themes on the GPL.
That’s it.
Wonderful post!
Just yesterday I’ve been asking people on Twitter what right EXACTLY the GPL offers. But I don’t need all the legal mumbo-jumbo, I cared about a simple: “CAN / CAN’T”.
I even asked Adii of WooThemes if I can redistribute their themes for free, but providing the intact credits, footers, etc. He LOLed and said that I can’t.
That is when I really got confused by the GPL thing.
Anyway, not meaning disrespect for other members, but no GPL for me… yet 🙂
It seems that some theme developers may have released their themes as GPL so they could keep up with the hype of the others but didn’t really want to allow users to have complete free reign over what they do with them.
I don’t see anything wrong at all with Alex’s post, he was merely pointing out what everyone knew but the theme developers didn’t want people to realise.
Well – this is exactly the problem I pointed out in many places late last year when our own themes club had really just started.
We wanted to provide GPL themes, and to keep some where we kept control. Going GPL means relinquishing control to the community – and it’s as simple as that. With the GPL you control whatever you have in your possession, but not what others have in theirs. That’s the point, really.
When Brian Gardner offered free downloads you can see that in the end he had to move to closed downloads. Without a reason to actually spend money, most people won’t. Donation led business rarely does all that well, so you have to offer something that makes people more willing to pay. That can be as simple as good karma, a support package, or access to a community.
The downside is that somebody else can offer two of those three, perfectly legitimately, but without having to go to the time and expense of developing the themes (and plugins). They will always have a higher margin business than the originators.
So, somebody could download all the GPL themes currently on offer and build a place where you can get support for *all* those themes that are out there.
Now, I actually believe that around 60% of people value authenticity while 40% or so simply don’t care that much. By going GPL you reduce your profitable market by 40% *but* you may also stand a fair chance of increasing your market of good people because more of them can try your work out for free.
I’m not actually convinced that free downloads + GPL is a way to make money directly, but it may help in other ways. We’ve already picked up some clients from our Caribou theme, and that’s not even broadly available yet…
[…] Alex King reminded people of this fact, and the mere idea of exercising the rights granted by the GPL led to quite a bashing in the comments. Some commenters even went so far as to say they’ve lost “all respect” Alex, again, for merely pointing out the idea, not actually doing it. Alex later apologized for that post he made earlier. […]
It strikes me that at some point or another your theme will be made available whether it is GPL or not – particularly if you’ve created an especially awesome or popular package.
We’re talking about a small package that can be downloaded in seconds. Easy to re-distribute. How practical is it to enforce our own license?
Hopefully legitimate users will continue to do the “right” thing by paying for their license if it’s of value to them – those are the customers I want to spend my time retaining. It just doesn’t seem worth it to expend time or resources on people that ultimately aren’t interested in buying.
I think this is a great post and I respect you all the more for posting it Alex. It is important people understand what GPL is and what it means. If you are offering themes as GPL you should have absolutely no problem with people then distributing them freely. In fact, if you have gone GPL, you should WANT people to distribute them as much as possible and modify them! That’s the point. You want your theme to spread virally, it will grow your community, your brand, your name, etc…! That why WordPress is so popular.
Remember, if someone makes changes to your theme, and makes it better, you can incorporate all those changes into yours. By going GPL, you have a whole community of developers who will freely help you keep your themes updated and working with all the latest versions of WordPress. These are huge advantages that will make your business grow and be stronger in the long-run even if it means some people get free copies. Embrace that or don’t go GPL! Build a community, move towards offering paid support and customizations. Maybe first release themes exclusively non GPL and later GPL them for everyone.
I run a GPL multiplayer online game. Anyone can download the code, rename the game, run their own server etc… I think that’s great. Im just one person, if others help things move forward everyone benefits. In the end, everyone still comes to my website, because it’s where the community around the project lives.
I don’t think anyone should give Alex any negative comments here. In fact, the best thing of all would be for Alex to release your themes free because he can add to them and send you tons of traffic and new customers. Unlike some scrapper sites, Alex would give you credit for all your work and would be the ideal partner for growing your business. If you’ve gone GPL, you should want this. You should probably consider contacting more big name WordPress theme and plugin builders and offer them free copies of your theme to distribute with a note that you offer support and customizations as well as many other awesome professional themes. Doing this would grown your business and send you tons of traffic. That’s embracing GPL and all the advantages it has to offer.
another reason why sarcasm (and hyperbole) doesn’t translate well in the blogosphere.
great stuff though. i “got” it.
@Sarah : lol, I am laughing at you 😛
really, you are accusing alex but guess what? alex is really that big a respected personality, it *doesn’t* matter if someone is bitching and losing faith in him.
if you really wish to write something, come up with logical points against his views. and #discuss. don’t rant
[…] More GPL Themes – Yay “Freeâ€dom | alexking.org (tags: WordPress themes gpl) […]
Great. So now we have a bunch fo GPL themes and a community that will attack anyone who wants to build on them and release them? What good is that?
Just “set up free distribution of these GPL themes” is down right stupid to do.
Building on top of these themes and creating something better is gold.
Besides, the saying “great artists steal” really symbolizes our culture well. And now GLP just makes it legal!
Yes, you can give the themes away gratis. Or you can also charge for them. That doesn’t mean people won’t buy them from the original source, plus the original source obviously made at least one sale 🙂
Selling libre content can work. Even though it may seem like you’ll just end up with free repos of it everywhere (and you may well end up with that) doesn’t mean that people won’t continue to buy from the original source: because of trust or branding or just because they can be sure the artist has the content they want 🙂
[…] Alex King reminded people of this fact, and the mere idea of exercising the rights granted by the GPL led to quite a bashing in the comments. Some commenters even went so far as to say they’ve lost “all respect” Alex, again, for merely pointing out the idea, not actually doing it. Alex later apologized for that post he made earlier. […]
[…] King, a well known wordpress contributor raised the question and heated arguments started all over – on twitter, blog posts and support […]
[…] yet another premium themes seller goes GPL. I think that’s good, but as Alex King pointed out (and then at least somewhat rephrased), the pure fact that themes are GPL’d means that […]
[…] always seems to evolve into “open source” versus “author protection”. As Alex King pointed out in one of his posts, theme authors should be aware of what the GPL license exposes them too, while it provides freedom […]
[…] yet another premium themes seller goes GPL. I think that’s good, but as Alex King pointed out (and then at least somewhat rephrased), the pure fact that themes are GPL’d means that anyone […]
[…] King was torn apart last week for supposing a scenario, based on what I’ve said above, wherein someone so inclined could […]
[…] King, a well known wordpress contributor raised the question and heated arguments started all over – on twitter, blog posts and support […]
[…] of making premium themes available for free, Corey Miller of iThemes quickly chimed in with this comment: “I think by just opening up this door to your right (as you are free to do so) isn’t […]
Hi, I want to sell a wordpress theme. I want to start with a theme which has GNU General Public License v2 like Sandbox. I want to add some of my own code and modify some of the existing code. When I finish my theme can I attribute that my theme is based on sandbox theme and then sell it. Will I have the rights to sell a theme based on modifications of an gpl v2 theme.
With every GPL “framework” out there, the theme may be free but the theme is completely useless unless you have a mastery of exactly how WP works and of all the necessary component parts (PHP, CSS, etc).
@Justin Tadlock: Hybrid is an awesome framework, and it’s free, or just $25 a year w/ “support.” But it’s completely useless to someone who wants to work on their site, not ON your theme. As a free member of the “theme club” you can’t access even the most basic of documentation, like what each template does or even WHERE the plugin areas are. You are the guy in the desert that sells cups, but won’t tell the parched man where to fill up. Since when does paying for “support” mean “Pay for even the most basic of documentation?” or “Pay up or you won’t even be allowed to see what you’re actually INSTALLING?”
It’s themes like Hybrid and Thematic (and even Carrington to a lesser extent) that make me feel that GPLing themes is a BAD idea, and they’re the poster children for the effort. GPLing a theme is starting to equate with “making a theme impossibly difficult to use so you can charge for support.” And framework is starting to mean “must be a developer to use at all.”
@Alex when I first learned about your Twitter plugin I installed it and then realized I couldn’t include/exclude particular posts. A quick email from your WP support service was happy to tell me they could “try” to do something for me for like $75 an hour.
I could hire someone to write a NEW plugin for less than that.
I’m writing this as a completely hypocritical user of the WP world’s MOST un-GPL’d theme in existence. In fact, you could call it the antiTHESIS of the GPL… but here’s the catch:
I use a ridiculously expensive theme that spits on the efforts of every GPL theme designer, and yet, and yet, I’ve never once actually needed support. The thing just works, and I’ve modified all sorts of things on it, things that are supposed to be easy to do with Hybrid and Thematic and Carrington. It’s possible, perhaps, to do these things, but by no means easy for the average blogger.
If we GPL’d hot dogs some of you would start giving away meat by-products and flour, and charging $250 an hour to use your oven.
I think you have some of your facts confused. Carrington is a CMS theme framework for designers and developers to use to create themes for WordPress as CMS web sites. It’s not intended to be a usable framework for end-users.
I can’t wait to see the plugins you get built for less than $75. Best of luck with that.
@Joe
I think you’ve gotten some information incorrect. Hybrid is a framework for developers and designers to build upon. It was never created for the average blogger (even though many do use it).
$25 for understanding how to use the theme? Hardly. There are 1,000s of people that use the theme just fine and never join the club. The only reason the theme has paid documentation and support is because theme club members have paid me to take the time to write out the documentation. Otherwise, there’d be next to nothing in terms of docs because I simply wouldn’t have the time to write them out.
I suppose I could just hide everything behind a payment wall. I could stop letting folks try the theme out before investing any money into the community.
[…] In my opinion, the battle Matt was fighting was trying to get commercial theme authors to recognize the fact that it’s wrong to place restrictions on their products which used an open platform that provided them an opportunity for their business to exist in the first place. Also, I fail to recognize the scare tactics Kevin mentions and of course, Automattic once again has nothing to do with this. I’m not so sure GPL themes are any more susceptible to piracy than non-GPL themes. For the most part, if someone wants to steal your theme, they’re not concerned about the legal ramifications. If anything, making a theme GPL compliant may actually give them more reason to do so as Alex King points out, “if I receive a theme under the GPL I can then redistribute it (for free or for a fee) as a right gra…â€. […]
So it looks I need to feel guilty because I use something what is under GPL.
Why dont you feel guilty because you want to earn money from open source spirit.
You should think before making this only way of living for your family.
[…] Alex King reminded people of this fact, and the mere idea of exercising the rights granted by the GPL led to quite a bashing in the comments. Some commenters even went so far as to say they’ve lost “all respect†Alex, again, for merely pointing out the idea, not actually doing it. Alex later apologized for that post he made earlier. […]
[…] liberties that the GPL licensing model offers. Alex King, a well known wordpress contributor raised the question and heated arguments started all over – on twitter, blog posts and support […]