For those following WordPress and Thesis on Twitter you’ve probably noticed that the fragile stand off between Thesis (DIYThemes) and Automattic ended with a verbal assault from Matt Mullenweg today (see here and here)
If you’re just being introduced to the situation basically Automattic (the company behind WordPress) doesn’t like the fact that the Thesis theme is not released with a GPL licence like WordPress. Automattic believes everything related to WordPress should be GPL’d while DIYThemes believes there is no legal reason why they have to fall in line with that theory.
I’m not going to get into choosing a GPL winner because my Law 101 course doesn’t near qualify me to chime in (hint yours doesn’t either)
However, what I will state is how this public mud flinging is only hurting the WordPress community, not strengthening it.
GPL is about Freedom
A corner stone of any great society is freedom – the freedom to do and say what you want as long as you don’t harm others. The best thing going for WordPress is it’s amazing secondary development community that releases free and paid themes / plugins on a regular basis and one of those products is Thesis.
Automattic from it’s actions has turned this debate into a religious crusade against Thesis. Where if you dare speak up for Thesis you are exiled from the WordPress world and may never return. This exiling has increased in recent months and innocent, good people are gunned down in the cross fire.
There in lies the hypocrisy – Automattic via it’s actions is no longer supporting freedom of choice. They are trying to control WordPress users by implementing punishments for those that don’t believe the same thing they do.
Be a good little sheep or find another flock.
Let the FREE Market Decide
Not free as in zero cost, free as in uncontrolled and unregulated. In a free market the best products rise to the top and crap will fade away. If users decided that GPL is important to them then they will pick products that are GPL, if GPL is not on their requirements list then that won’t matter to them (98% of users fall in this bracket)
Do these non-GPL products mean the end of the WordPress development community? Not at all, there will always be people that will develop for both groups, if it makes sense to do so – that’s how the free market works.
Is that so wrong? Should all non-GPL’ers be prosecuted and threatened to fall in line with a particular ideology?
Why I Personally Support Thesis
I first found Thesis about a year and half ago and decided to give it a go. Before that when I wanted to start a new project I’d search the repository and various theme sites for something that fit my vision and go from there. However, in the early days I had to wade through a ton of poorly coded, out-dated themes to find ones that worked reliably.
I just wanted one solid, flexible theme that I knew I could count on to be consistently supported and would grow with me.
Now a year and half later we’ve been able to do great things with Thesis. We’ve designed some great looking Thesis sites for happy clients, we’ve released many free and paid child-skins enjoyed by thousands and we’ve had a great time doing it.
Could this all of been done with another GPL compliant framework? Probably, but I freely choose Thesis because it fit my requirements just like I freely choose WordPress. If Automattic has a problem they shouldn’t resort to publicly splitting the community but rather handle it behind the scenes and resolve it for good or get over it.
DIYThemes believes that being non-GPL is right and good for business and they should have that freedom, until the courts say different they have every legal authority to do so. They’ve built a great product and they’ve picked a license that they feel better protects their investment and makes sense for their business.
I make no apologies for supporting Thesis, if you feel the need to attack my choice because it doesn’t fit your ideology, then I’m saddened. I hate that this has grown to the point where I feel I can’t publicly support a software I love without the threat of being shunned from the WordPress community.
Thesis is great and WordPress is great, don’t base your decision on politics, choose a software that works for you and feel comfortable in knowing you made you’re choice based on your real-world needs.
At the core we are all just WordPress users trying to do what’s best for us and our clients, I wish we could all just get along.
Post Author
Mark Hodder has been a successful web freelancer since 2007. His business, Hodder Consulting, works with small / medium businesses all over the world to provide cost effective solutions to common IT problems. After implementing the popular WordPress framework "Thesis" with great success on many of his clients sites he launched ThesisThemes.com on June 1, 2009.
{ 9 comments }
Well said, especially the part about the free market. While I’m not versed enough in the details of the GPL, to me calling a theme a derivative work simply because it calls functions from WordPress is laughable (neither can function without the other), but that’s neither here nor there. I completely agree that WordPress has continually attempted to stifle any dissenting conversation or support for Thesis, and that is very sad, and appears to me to be very hypocritical.
At the end of the day, I don’t see this debate ending until a court decides exactly what constitutes a derivative work and what doesn’t, and that could take years.
Mark,
I do agree that you should be able to build on top of Wordpress and let the free market decide if you are successful. However, the GPL’ed Wordpress code is being taken by Thesis and then sold without the same license. Andrew Nacin wrote code under the GPL license and now has to watch as someone else violates the license he used.
I think it’s great to support a paid theme and there is nothing wrong with charging for it. The GPL lets you charge whatever you want. What is a problem is that the Thesis license does not let you use Thesis freely after purchasing it.
John: It is not a matter of calling Wordpress functions. Thesis has actual Wordpress code inside of it.
Regardless of your personal beliefs the fact is that Thesis contains GPL code and is not licensesd as such and is therefore in violation. It’s really as simple as that. The proof is there for all to see.
I really don’t care if Thesis goes GPL or not, I believe in their right to choose what is best for their business / creation. If Thesis goes GPL or more likely duel license great, if not I’m sure we will all still wake up tomorrow and continue business as usual – at least I will, bigger fish to fry then some intangible concept.
If you believe that the Thesis developers have the right to disregard the WordPress licence, the GPL, and apply their own licence, then how about this. I have obtained a copy of the latest version of Thesis. Will you support my right to choose what’s best for me; that being, freely distributing Thesis to anyone that wants it. You see, doing that is best for my business / creation.
@Dave – You can go ahead and distribute Thesis if you want, but don’t be surprised if Chris goes after you legally for violating his license agreement.
I haven’t entered into any such agreement?
No Dave because that argument doesn’t make any sense. If you were to build your own product from the ground up and were publicly attacked for not complying with an untested legal argument, I would support your presumption of innocence rights, yes.
Closing comments since as I anticipated above, Thesis just went split license and is now in full compliance with the GPL.
Comments on this entry are closed.