Over the past couple of days there has been quite a dust-up in the WordPress world over whether or not themes are considered derivative works under WordPress' GPL license. I've written about my own feelings about the situation on my own site—WordPress, Thesis, GPL, and premium themes | TrisHusseyDotCom—but here I want to talk about why GPL is essential to how we use computers today. Oh and not only our computers, but the Internet itself. This is: Why GPL is important.
First off, just what is GPL? It stands for GNU General Public License and it is how much of the open-source programs we know, use, love, and sometimes hate (yes you Drupal) are licensed (WordPress › About » GPL). Where WordPress, and many other apps, is concerned the idea is that you can download, use, modify, and redistribute the app as long as you follow the same license terms (essentially that people can do the same). It's the modification (and derivation) that is key here. If it wasn't for GPL, WordPress.com wouldn't exist. Heck WordPress wouldn't exist. Both of them were forks off an original piece of software. WordPress from b2 and WordPress MU (which powered WordPress.com) from WordPress itself. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Linux, the operating system that powers most of the servers in the world: GPL. Apache, the webserver software that runs most of the sites on the Internet: GPL. PHP, MySQL, Perl, all GPL. If we couldn't freely use, modify and distribute these packages, the Internet would we a pretty dreary place.
So while the discussion over whether or not WordPress themes are derivative works of WordPress is pretty esoteric for many folks, the ability to make and redistribute those works is something that hits way close to home.
Posted through Google Chrome, which is based on Apple's Webkit and licensed under the GNU LGPL license.
