How infectious is the GPL? Battle of words between WordPress and Thesis
Submitted by srlinuxx on Thu, 07/15/2010 - 21:08
Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, is engaged in a battle of words with the maker of one of its premium themes, Chris Pearson, who runs DIYthemes and offers the Thesis theme on a paid-for basis. I listened to their discussion on Mixergy; it is ill-tempered particularly on Pearson’s side.
The issue boils down to this. WordPress is licensed under the GPL, which provides that if you derive a new work from an existing GPL-licensed work, the GPL applies to your new work as well.
Pearson argues, I think, that his work is not so tightly linked to WordPress that the GPL applies. “Thesis does not inherit anything from WordPress” he says.
Mullenweg says that the way themes interact with WordPress is such that all themes much be GPL. “If you build something on top of it, it should be GPL” he says.
Pearson is refusing to license his theme under the GPL. What is to be done – would Mullenweg go to court to protect the GPL?
The #thesiswp Controversy:
redmonk.com/sogrady: It’s not that there’s any shortage of opinions on the #thesiswp debacle: just ask Twitter. But as many as I’ve read, though, no one distilled it down to what I would consider the essence of the matter.
There are really only two interesting questions here as far as I’m concerned. Does Thesis have the right to not adhere to the terms of the GPL? And independent of that question, does it make business sense for them to not adhere to the license?
In an attempt to answer those, I give you the the following commentary,
in the usual Q&A format.