Wordpress Themes Are GPL Code
The theme that I’m using for this site includes the following amusing snippet in its license.txt file:
This template is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. This means that you are free to use and modify it for any purpose, but you must include the provided link back to my website. I have agreed to let users remove the link for a fee of $20. Removing the link (not paid for) is the same as breaking the law and action can be taken against you.
This of course, flies in the face of the GPL license that Wordpress itself ships with:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
If that wasn’t clear enough, GNU explains that “modules [that] are designed to run linked together” constitute combined code. So, any theme, plugin, extension, or hack currently existing that I know about which uses the Wordpress API falls under the GPL license. The key point for this is that Wordpress does not include a special exception for themes. Matt Mullenweg (the creator of WP) hit the nail on the head in a forum thread:
Themes link and use lots of internal WordPress functions, which make them linked under the GPL and subject to being a GPL-compatible license.
If a theme (or a plugin) used no internal WP functions or APIs, then it could probably be considered independent, but that would be really really hard for a theme.
For more about Sponsored Links and Wordpress Themes, check out:
- Switching from Creative Commons to GPL
- The WordPress themes debate
- “Sponsored” Themes
- “Sponsored” Wordpress Themes
- Deteriorating Community
Update:
In a new post on the Wordpress blog, Themes are GPL, too, Matt Mullenweg speaks out to clarify the themes as GPL discussion:
Specifically, the CSS files and material contained in the images directory of the “default” theme are works separate from the WordPress code. On the other hand, the PHP and HTML code that is intermingled with and operated on by PHP the code derives from the WordPress code.
Posted in Wordpress Proper
Tagged with themes link, compatible license, wordpress themes, images directory, key point, breaking the law, default theme, forum thread, css files, snippet, gpl license, apis, creative commons, flies, hack, api, third parties, wp, gnu, ships
Some people seem confused here. Defintely and absolutely if you make a call to something like wp_head() in your theme, you ARE subject to the GPL. End of story. There is no way, without an explicit statement from WordPress, that you can get out of that. But then again, that is WordPress’ duty to enforce.
[...] was darunter zu verstehen ist. Nämlich alles, was die Wordpress API nutzt (siehe hierzu Wordpress Themes are GPL Code). Und das tun Themes nun einmal…denn was tun Themes anderes, als Wordpress-spezifische Module [...]
So far as I can tell this is all about the ability of something to run with/without wordpress, and whether you distribute it with/without wordpress. So, if you were to sell someone the theme and sell them the service of installing it, you could install wordpress and the theme at the same time and be fine with a non-gpl theme. But, if you were to sell the theme on your site, the download of the theme file couldn’t be a modified wordpress archive with the theme already in it. That addresses the distribution issues.
As far as the ability to work independantly, or with another piece of non-gpl software instead of wordpress, it would be trivial to create a simple theme framework that provided the basics of the wordpress theme environment. I could make one that had stubs with dummy content for all of the important methods in wp in about 4 hours, and then bsd license the thing. The funny part of that is that it would actually be able to run a website with static content were you to just adjust a few things in the stub file… example:
function the_post(){
return 'content here.';
}
With these things taken care of there wouldn’t be the gpl requirement onus on your themes. The same would hold true for plugins.
Any for you guys arguing the gpl viralness applying to css, you are completely wrong. Read this article:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5041108431.html
Pay attention to the part pertaining to binary modules not being infected by the gpl when using standard unix interfaces. css uses standard interfaces for things, and as mikec has noted, wordpress doesn’t own the rights to the selectors used in the css file. Also, at the worst, the problem would be license incompatibility, not gpl viralness. The license for the theme wouldn’t be compatible with wordpress and it would be against the gpl license for the person USING wordpress to use the theme with it. It would have no effects on the theme creator.
I think many people worship at the feet of Matt a bit too much on this. Obviously he is going to insist that designs are under the GPL but last time I checked there is not a single piece of PHP code in a style sheet and Matt didn’t invent stylesheets or CSS . Its Matt’s software that calls for the CSS not the other way around and no court in the land is about to give him or Wordpress the rights to CSS files just because his software calls for it. Will Matt also claim that if a company employs a graphic designer to make icons, headers and a logo for their wordpress site that the graphics then are GPL also?
Umm, no. Violating any law is a criminal offense that results in jail time, this would be a civil offense that results of monetary fines, and probably not a very large one.
Not even close to the same thing.
[...] and done something radically better. This is one example that stands out firmly in my mind.I am not the only person who has noticed that WordPress is released under the GNU General Public License. In the license, it [...]
I’m glad Mike’s fighting the same rights corner as myself.
As we’re soon to be making money from premium themes (both WordPress.com and through our own system) we’ve taken a long hard look at this and come up with this precaution, just in case:
Our themes come with separate styles, which are essentially a configuration file, images and so on. The styles can and will be distributed separately from the themes as they’re independent entities. They need WordPress to run, but that doesn’t make them into GPL. Just like an image only viewable in GIMP doesn’t become GPL either.
Professional coders, paid a living, can and do contribute hugely to open source projects. But the money has to come from somewhere – being able to do some added effort work to complement our GPL work makes this possible.
At least WordPress accept that theme builders need to earn a living if they’re to get the best themes possible – hence the marketplace giving 50% of proceeds to the developers. That may not sound generous, but with GPL they could cheerfully pick up themes for free and then sell them at a profit. So here’s a woo for WordPress.com
I just hope they get on and finish that damn marketplace before I retire!
Mike, I don’t believe your theme is solely a CSS file, it needs php files to work with WordPress. I do concede that there may be harm if Matt were to state explicitly that all WordPress themes are GPL.
Often times in open source community there is this blind short sighted commitment to everything being open and monetarily free even if the logical conclusion of that would be the detriment of the community’s real needs. People don’t really take the time to think things through and fail to see the differences between software and artistic design.
Software is made for replication.
The more people using a piece of software makes it stronger in the marketplace. Replication meets the goal of software to present a solution to a wide need.
Design is entirely different. A million people using the same exact Wordpress release empowers the commmunity – a million people using the same exact design would hinder the community and make it look like the software wasn’t capable of much creativity.
No matter how dishonest we may wish to be in a debate like this the facts are almost all of us want a site that looks as unique as we are able to achieve given our resources of time and capital.
Wordpress is a presentation piece of software and we don’t mind that. What we don’t want is for the presentation itself – our sites – to look exactly like a thousand other sites.
In other words what every web designer worthy of the title already knows is that the central need of the web site owner is not replication but creative uniqueness otherwise known in the business word as branding.
By very definition the only way to protect uniqueness is to limit its distribution. Like it or not it meets a core need of the community.
The second error people make is that they tend to define the open source community in a way that excludes a large part of the community in favor of frankly people looking for a free ride and little else. There is a HUGE portion of the wordpress community that is attempting to use wordpress for financial gain. I can’t remember the last time I have gone to a wordpress blog and not seen an ad of some sort – even you have a link to a site where you are soliciting paid work.
So although there are those that will froth at the mouth at the truth of it – a huge part and in fact the majority of the community is engaged in using wordpress in “money grubbing business”. No, that should not automatically argue that people should pay for designs but rather that being involved in business of some sort the wordpress community has a an additional business need to have unique looking sites and premium themes allows them a measure of that uniqueness for those who can’t afford totally custom jobs.
What many on your side argue for is a situation where only the relatively affluent could achieve basic web site goals using wordpress.
No offense but I often find that those championing against premium themes are those who do custom wordpres work without batting an eye. They intend to share their designs and programming with no one but the paying client and then bristle that theme designers share their work with more of the community than their custom job ever will.
By any rational logic sharing a design with only one person is less helpful to a community that sharing it with 7 or 8 people. I submit that those arguing against premium themes should take a less hypocritical stance and also take a stand against closed custom jobs. Share it ALL with the community.
However should we even be able to go that route it would still violate the central need of a website to have a unique site for itself.
I guess the bright side is that I would have a great bit of eye candy that I could jack the css for with no qualms since it would be GPL and clearly electronically distributed.
Well you can be stubborn about it if you wish. Your privilege. However your conceding a point or not isn’t material. We don’t get a vote in legal matters and your legal argument is flat. Nothing you have presented makes for a solid legal argument whereas the issues regarding copyright have been laid out pretty clearly through the years. The expression of a copyrighted design through a medium does not make the medium inventors copyright owners of the design. If its my design when I sketch it then its my design when it is implemented.
Incidentally if you think the design process is over with the sketch or PSD then you really don’t understand web design and the art of css and shouldn’t be arguing for unfettered access to a process you don’t understand.
Look, its really quite easy. If Matt and his supporters on this ever do try to push this idea it will blow up in their faces. Remember what you said about companies and corporation using Wordpress and being free not to distribute their site design? Its false.
If you argue that the CSS is part of the GPL then there is no site in which the design is not being distributed. The CSS is linked to it for full electronic access. I could go to ANY site using Wordpress and access its linked CSS file and rip it to my hearts content (but remember by your argument it isn’t ripping its me accessing a legitimately GPL design). Within a few months there would not be one unique designed wordpress design on the web.
I’d give it a few years for most serious businesses to abandon wordpress as a viable business communication tool. Most that I know take a dim view of being unable to protect their unique look in the marketplace.
There is one more issue I’d address before closing out this exchange if you don’t mind and thats why designers aren’t voiolating any community concepts by retaining their copyright to a design.
I see your point, but I don’t concede to it. A PSD file, sketch, etc is a design, while a theme+css is a concrete implementation of that design. As such I still feel it’s covered by GPL.
But anyway, let me know if there’s a mailing list or thread where GPLers and Designers hang!
come on Elliot. You are begging bread here not even coming close to a solid argument. The whole purpose of CSS is to divide design from content no? In the wordpress scheme it CLEARLY is to divide design from program code. I sense some desperation in your argument especially here -
“Those theme files, link GPL’d Wordpress internal functions”
thats really quite twilight zone. What defines the theme is the CSS and there is NOT ONE SINGLE BIT of reference in the CSS to “wordpress internal functions”. nada. Neither is there in most cases to any javascript. CSS cannot call any internal function of Wordpress just standard named selectors that can be changed at will.
(I have already conceded “Added features” in themes are on thin ice )
The “mere aggregation” FAQ seems extremely clear to me that the mere inclusion of a file distributed alongside Wordpres files doesn’t subject it to the GPL and the FAQ’s clear delineation of design elements such as fonts not automatically being included in GPL even when used within the confines of the GPLed software creates that large hissing sound going out of your argument.
Again please take the blinders off and read the FAQ. The section you quoted discusses what
licenses you should release a template under if you are including it in your software (like the default theme) NOT what it has to be released under by its users. Did you miss this -
“So, we recommend that you license your templates under simple permissive terms.”
Wordpress is not the supplier of premium templates and I would argue that that is in fact user code because CSS is designed to be user code. It is specifically a standard for people to design their site’s own look and feel. In the end your argument falls flat. Wordpress uses of XHTML and CSS standards does not make CSS and XHTML GPL. Never can and never will.
To use another illustration your argument is akin to claiming that artwork created in Gimp has to be GPL if it is distributed with Gimp as an example of the work that Gimp can do.
CSS is a form of electronic art and besides the illegality of the argument and its inability to be enforced (notice that no one is even attempting to test this theory out n the legal system – for obvious reasons) I find it quite onerous that any organization would make the claim that if a design is expressed through a piece of software the software makers would even dream to attempt to exercise any
rights over the design. Its a curious totalitarian mindset. IF Microsoft tried such a thing the cry would be heard around the world and no the fact that its to be released to the community doesn’t really make it any different. Free societies have long respected the artist’s privilege to do what he wishes with the rights to his own creative works. Its not the choice of a government. organization or company to force him to do so. I might be invoking an overly powerful word but that kind of misguided approach to things far more serious is known as communism. The price of an artist using wordpress as a canvas for his creativity shouldn’t mean that he must give up the right to use his design the way he feels fit.
And yes
. I am enjoying the debate as well but It would probably be better to have it somewhere where it isn’t being read just by the two of us. When I find a place I’ll let you know.
I am really enjoying your arguments, Mike C
So let me take the time to respond.
I think argument that would associate the CSS/Image/JS of a theme with the code components can be found in the Mere Aggregation FAQ:
Yes, CSS *can* be linked against arbitrary HTML, but in the case of a Wordpress theme, it’s linked against theme files specifically, and bundled with them. Those theme files, link GPL’d Wordpress internal functions, and therefore GPL, so you see how the taint of ‘free software’ spreads up from Wordpress, to the Theme, to its CSS.
Now, I would like to address something specifically that you said, which is, “I would invite Matt to tell me that the design is now no longer mine simply because I ported a design I had selling in another format to wordpress.” The rights to the design are still yours, such as various copyrights and trademarks. Only now that you’ve tainted your work with GPL (or freedom), generic third parties obtain the right to modify, distribute, etc, per GPL.
Check out this FAQ from the FSF, What license should I use for those templates:
It would require a special exemption in the Wordpress license for CSS to avoid GPL taint, and there just isn’t one, unfortunately.
incidentally I think you might consider reading from the GPl document you quoted from in the article. It makes it very clear to me that the simple inclusion of a file in a package does not make it connected to the GPl program. CSS has no calls to any software. The one design element that the GPL document does speak to – fonts- is stated to NOT be an automatic inclusion under the GPL.
I’d like – if you have the time – to hear your perspective to Wordpress.com planning to sell themes through a marketplace. Do you agree with that? and why should that be viewed in any better light for the community?
I fully understand. I of course was taking it as a given that the theme would become accessible to the public. I’m sorry but The GPL cannot extend itself to my css code. It can extend itself to the software that is GPLed. CSS is not wordpress software. SO if a company decides to sell its design to a number of other entities their site design is theres to sell. My site layout and design is not derivative. I can take my css and apply it to an XHTML page with content and it works. Not even the selectors I choose to use in Wordpress are unique. Div#wrapper, .content or even .post is nothing that wordpress can claim is its own. It uses standard XHTML tags around its code and then calls for my CSS. My poor little CSS cannot even recognize on its own the existence of any wordpress software.
I really wish that Matt evangelists would stop trying to intimidate designers by claiming the impossible – that merely the “porting ” of my design into Wordpress makes the design property of Wordpress and subject to its GPL should it be shared in any way.
What this could speak to is the trend of adding additional “features” to wordpress in premium themes. None of these features work outside of Wordpress on their own and are built on True wordpres software that is GPL.
But my design? Nope. to illustrate how silly that contention is all I need to do is create my design in XHTML and CSS and sell it on a template site. One day a customer asks me to port it over to Wordpress which I do. A few other people ask me to do the same and I do and one of them inadvertently or purposely shares it to some other users.. I would invite Matt to tell me that the design is now no longer mine simply because I ported a design I had selling in another format to wordpress. IT gets its design from my CSS that existed long before it being used in wordpress and I invite him to tell my artist that the artwork that he created for me can now be used by anyone as community property because it was included in a design ported for someone’s use in Wordpress.
Sorry but I don’t see any other GPL community claiming it can take designs by hostage simply because the designs are used in their software.
I don’t think you quite understand–if you have a Wordpress theme you made for your blog, or even paid someone to make, there is no obligation to give it away (via GPL). However, if you release that template to the public, in any form, including sale, the persons you give it to, or sell it to, have the right to modify it, give it away for free, etc… according to the GPL.
I think many people worship at the feet of Matt a bit too much on this. Obviously he is going to insist that designs are under the GPL but last time I checked there is not a single piece of PHP code in a style sheet and Matt didn’t invent stylesheets or CSS . Its Matt’s software that calls for the CSS not the other way around and no court in the land is about to give him or Wordpress the rights to CSS files just because his software calls for it. Will Matt also claim that if a company employs a graphic designer to make icons, headers and a logo for their wordpress site that the graphics then are GPL also?
Claiming CSS based designs fall under GPL is an incredibly weak argument except for the part of premium designs that seek to ad functionality by adding PHP code to the wordpress core. – the PHP code is GPL and the CSS is the designers and Matt does not have a prayer at winning a lawsuit that claims otherwise. So yes the GPl can have a lot to say about adding features in premium themes but the overall design of these themes are property of the designer. However I don’t know if Matt wants to really push this because corporation touted as using Wordpress aren’t going to like it one bit if all of their custom code and in house design is going to become property of the wordpress community just because they use the software for their blog.
Meanwhile I cannot think of one good reason why premium themes should be considered evil when Wordpress is considering offering a premium marketplace on wordpress.com to users who are less likely to be able to afford it than those hosting their own site.
Daniel, your effort to make a living out of your hard work is praiseworthy, but you have to take into account other people’s hard work, too.
WordPress is Free Software, which means that it is the combined effort of a LOT of people, giving their HARD work for free in the interest of the general public.
It would be kind of unfair to take advantage of all this work and make your product (which intimately needs the free software to run), unfree, right?
After all, if WP were not free, you might even not have the chance to make a theme, plugin or any other change in first place.
We license a GPL theme… but we also build custom premium themes which we’re soon to release.
No, they won’t be GPL.
Linking has a very definite meaning in development – a linker brings in different pieces of code and compiles them all into a whole. That whole is GPL.
For a description of this read the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker
php doesn’t work like that – it’s a scripting language. You include a php files which effectively tells the interpreter where to find the functions, but these includes never become a part of a whole. Similarly, you make calls to functions. But they’re not linked – they’re calls.
Now, maybe I’ve grasped the wrong end of the stick, but so far as I see it this makes GPL less viral when it’s appled to interpreted code.
We’ll be selling premium themes, hand written from the bottom up, which will not be GPL. As we actually need to start making a living from all this, it’s the only option. If someone could undermine our business model (image a freerevolutiontheme.com website!) in seconds then why bother? We’d start looking elsewhere for our income because ultimately, we need to be able to feed, clothe and house ourselves!
I was thinking about this. You’d need two parts; one would be a generic blog interface system that you would give away under a purely free license, like “public domain.” The other part would be a GPL wordpress-interface bridge, which would attempt to automatically connect wordpress to any interface script files that might (or might not) exist, at runtime.
Just out of curiousity, let’s say somebody created a simple PHP script that acted as a wrapper for the Wordpress API. For example, a class called WP_Wrap with a method like WP_Wrap::hasPosts() which simply calls have_posts().
Could this library be released under the Lesser GPL? And if so, could a custom template use this library and thus be free from the restrictions of the GPL?
You don’t lose your copyright, but you do have to follow the restrictions of the GPL.
Surely this means that if a commercial entity creates a theme for wodpress and puts it for sale and download, that it has to be GPL and thus can be freely redistributed by whoever downloads it?
So designers cannot use copyright as protection of their work!!?
Interested in comments as this would also apply to most other OS CMSs and other tools, as they are mainly released under GPL.
Anthony
Most people think of GPL-licensed software as “free” in the sense of “does not have to pay for it”. In fact, GPL-licensed software is a viral license, making every piece of software based on GPL-licensed code GPL-licensed one as well. LGPL would make possible to distribute code with other licenses, but WordPress is still GPL, that is not LGPL…