GPL may be challenged in WordPress vs Thesis issue

Trojan

There's a really interesting debate going on at the moment about WordPress themes which WP claim should inherit GPL, and premium theme creator who doesn't agree.

Video (mainly sound only) here. It's 45-50 minutes long, but well worth listening to [edit: if you're interested in software licencing/development and/or WordpRess). There will be a transcript at that location later, maybe by the time you read this.

There was an argument brewing on Twitter today, so I invited the two guys at the center of it to talk openly here.

Chris Pearson, as you might have heard in his recent Mixergy interview, is racking up sales of Thesis, the popular premium theme he created for WordPress. Matt Mullenweg, the man behind WordPress says he’s happy that Chris is earning money, but insists that Thesis adopt the same license as WordPress, GPL, the most widely used free software license.

Pearson really seemed to be pushing for WP to sue him in what could be a landmark case for the GPL. Potentially massive ramifications here.

My thoughts:

Pearson is a strong debater with a weak position, Mullenweg the opposite. However, I think Pearson despite his Bush-like "because I feel it" arguments, I think that he might have a point and aside from the lawyer-speak, it depends on inheriting across the interface (API).

Pearson should have been more careful about what he said on the interview (which is what makes it interesting).

kevteljeur

Thanks for posting the link and brief overview, Trojan; I came across it in Twitter but didn't quite get it. I do some Wordpress work from time to time, love the platform (well, it's not 'beautiful' as a piece of engineering but it does work extremely well) and I'm glad I didn't miss this.

Chris Pearson shouts a good shout, but at the end of the day Matt Mullenweg comes across as very restrained, articulate and factual, which befits his status at the top of the Wordpress community. He is debating less, and more just stating the facts and the Wordpress position, and continuously offering an 'olive branch'. Chris's position in this is very weak, he is just spouting hot air and by the end he comes across as a bone-head who wants this to be about personal freedom to do whatever he wants, regardless.

I really feel like Mullenweg is doing his best to reach out, and avoid the inevitable; he has to protect the GPL licence, and it looks to me like Pearson is trying to bluff Wordpress into not going there. That could be very unpleasant.

The giveaway for me is that Pearson is unwilling to consider that Thesis cannot exist without Wordpress, and at the same time he is unwilling to move to another platform. If it is so fantastic, surely he should build up his own CMS underneath it? There were more than a few elephants in the room in this conversation, and it seemed to me that Pearson's tactic was to shout and point out of the window rather than to address them. It won't play like that in a court of law, and it looks like that is where it will end up.


k

kevteljeur

By the way, two largely impartial analyses of the legal implications:

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/07/16/the-thesis-controversy/

http://regulargeek.com/2010/07/15/wordpress-and-thesis-can-argue-but-what-does-the-license-say/

Helpful.


k

Goodshape

I think Pearson comes across terribly in that debate. Countering [what are purported to be] legal facts with 'yeah but I don't want to'.

I came away from it thinking two things --- 1) Pearson made the mistake of not understanding the GPL when he started thesis (I think he says as much in the audio), and 2) if he wasn't being so stubborn he could look into adopting the GPL to his advantage.


Very interesting debate though. I'm far from an expert on the GPL and very interested to see the outcome of this. Despite his poor debate, I would personally prefer Pearson's take on things.

STBR

When I seen this posted on Mixergy last week I just couldn't stop laughing.

"One of the three most important people in WordPress" :pac:

Classic.

Trojan

I think Pearson comes across extremely poorly (as a typical egotist) and doesn't make his points well.

However, I also think he may have a strong argument *iff* the Thesis code didn't have any WordprEss code copied and pasted in. Since it does, the argument is pretty clear cut for me - the premium theme Thesis violates GPL.

On the flip side, I do not agree with Matt that all Wordpress themes must by definition be GPL - there is a good case that they are not derivative.

kevteljeur

As a footnote, Pearson caved and applied the GPL to his core theme code (more or less):

Chalk this one up as a victory for the free software movement: Thesis, the wildly popular proprietary WordPress theme from developer/designer Chris Pearson, is now available under a split GPL, the license that makes it possible to alter and redistribute this software as you see fit.

http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/thesis-relents/

I guess he saw sense and made nice.


k

Trojan

I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see it played out. I disagree with the WordPress position that themes are derivative works (even though Thesis specifically *is*).

kevteljeur

It's quite a grey area; I think it was more about the spirit of the GPL licence being applied, than the letter of it, and I suspect that what drew Mullenweg's ire was not the technicality, but the idea that the licence has allowed the community to exist, and should be respected by all those 'profiting' (and not just in the literal sense of money) from the community. Pearson's mercenary attitude that the guys who created it could take a jump and they owed as much to him, if not more, than he to them wasn't helping him win friends.

Had it been played out, we could have seen some very big players getting involved for various reasons of their own (to defend or break the GPL) and has Pearson won, he could have a very hollow victory resulting in him having to code his own upgrades to his own flavour of what used to be Wordpress. And that would have been the very least of it, in terms of effects on the software industry; I would say he realised that himself, and that it would have his name attached to the consequences.


By the way, I understand that if the theme extends any part of the Wordpress API/codebase, that it is a derivative work? Or, to not invoke the GPL, it would have to be a very 'dumb' theme... Curious to see your view on that.


k

Trojan wrote: »

I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see it played out. I disagree with the WordPress position that themes are derivative works (even though Thesis specifically *is*).