I believe it’s time for Matt Mullenweg to seriously reconsider the restrictive, unsuccessful business models (donations, paid support) he currently requires developers adhere to in order to have their plugins and themes hosted at WordPress.org. Theme and plugin developers have helped make WordPress the champion blogging platform that it is today without receiving a single dime of the $29.5 million in funding that Automattic raised last year. Both Matt Mullenweg and his company Automattic benefit financially from the hard work of plugin developers and theme designers. Yet it’s somehow justified in Matt’s mind that it’s not okay for plugin developers and theme designers to directly receive financial compensation for their contributions to WordPress.
Why Doesn’t Automattic Have To Obey The Rules?
There are several instances where Matt’s own company Automattic appears to contradict Matt’s rules for plugin developers. For instance, did you know that the Poll Daddy plugin is hosted in the official WP plugin repository even though they charge for a premium version of Poll Daddy? Perhaps you knew that Automattic charges for commercial licenses of the Akismet plugin which can be found in the official WP plugin repository too? Either I’m misunderstanding it, or it’s indeed possible, as demonstrated by Automattic, to host your free plugin at WordPress.org and also sell keys/licenses for plugins as “services” whether they are GPL compliant or not, or Matt is promoting a double standard here.
Why Matt Doesn’t Want To Clarify The WordPress GPL
Despite all my research, I’m beginning to think that Matt Mullenweg either doesn’t fully understand the meaning of GPL or purposefully doesn’t elaborate on the specifics of it to prevent developers from knowing exactly where the lines are drawn. It would be super easy for him to post at WordPress.org a list of things you can and can’t do with your premium plugins/themes according to the WordPress GPL and what business models are GPL compliant. Why have you not done this Matt? Please tell me I’m wrong about your understanding of the GPL and your intentions. It’s probably no mistake that Matt doesn’t want to acknowledge such issues. For it he did, he would have to acknowledge the fact that Automattic, a commercial entity that owns WordPress, exploits the GPL to promote it’s distribution, uses plugin and theme developers work to build upon WordPress, and then uses the GPL as a barrier to prevent anyone except Automattic from benefiting financially from the work. Regardless of Matt’s intentions, if he doesn’t start embracing plugin and theme developers to find an alternate business model to support them, at some point developers are either going to move on to another platform that does or simply create their own plugin/theme repository.
Developers Should Use Automattic’s Tactics
My current understanding of what is acceptable is that you can develop non-GPL premium themes and premium plugins and sell them but not on WordPress.org. If you want to get your plugins or themes into the official WP repository, you’re going to have to offer a free version and make sure it’s GPL compliant before it (free version only) will be hosted at WordPress.org. If your plugin or theme depends on WordPress code source to operate (which most do) then according to the GPL, customers who buy your premium themes and plugins have the right to distribute them freely. That stipulation by itself acts as a strong deterrent for selling premium themes and plugins and it’s probably why Matt tends to promote a service based model rather than selling the software outright. One solution to this problem is to require a unique encryption or API key (like Akismet uses) in order for your theme or plugin to work correctly which should help prevent people from pirating your work and distributing it freely.
Failure Of Donations, Paid Support-only Business Models
As I pointed out previously, the current WordPress donation based model that’s allowed by Matt and utilized by so many WP plugin developers doesn’t work. Moreover, freely available plugins frequently become a burden for their developer as they require lots of time to maintain and support. As a result, plugins either die off or they’re reassigned to become someone else’s problem.
Matt has been adamant about banishing theme designers from the official WordPress theme repository if they sell premium themes in a way that violates the GPL. On December 10th, 2008 he oversaw the removal of approximately 200 themes from the official WordPress theme repository because he said they did exactly that. He is also opposed to generating revenue from the development of WordPress plugins and themes unless the developer uses the broken donation model or a paid support-only business model to do so. The ugly fact is that, by itself, paid support for themes and plugins isn’t a viable business model either. Most people shouldn’t need support for a well designed plugin or theme. Moreover, if a customer can find a cheaper support rate elsewhere why would they pay the author to provide them with support? The key to this puzzle may lie in the definition of what support and services are. That is, does requiring the customer to buy an API key in order for the plugin to work constitute support?
Brian Gardner himself may be able to provide some insight as to the challenges of a paid support-only model. His Revolution themes were initially proprietary prior to the creation of his Revolution2 brand whereby he announced that they would become open source, GPL compliant, and he would adopt the paid support-only model. Brian received a lot of media coverage with this announcement and Matt Mullenweg rewarded his decision by giving Brian an exclusive opportunity to display his Revolution2 banner ad in the official WordPress theme repository.
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As far as I know Brian’s Revolution2 brand no longer exists and while his new StudioPress premium themes brand is GPL-ish, his company no longer depends solely on a support-only business model to generate revenue. Currently, you must pay to obtain a StudioPress theme and you must pay to receive support for it as well. I’m not at all knocking Brian’s decisions; I applaud him for doing this as it’s a smart business move that not only benefits him and his staff but the WordPress community as a whole. Getting paid to deliver excellent themes that enhance the overall experience and public image of WordPress is a good thing. Support and great looking, compliant themes require a lot of development time and that’s why you don’t see the same quality of work reflected in the free themes that reside in the repository.
A Better Solution For Theme And Plugin Devlopers
It seems that the best solution for most plugin and theme developers would be for Matt Mullenweg to create a premium plugin marketplace and a premium themes marketplace. He indeed appeared to be interested in establishing a WordPress.com premium themes marketplace in which Automattic would share 50% of the revenue with the theme designers but that idea for some unknown reason never gained any real traction. Perhaps the theme designers realized they could sell their themes themselves and keep 100% of the profits? Regardless, creating such a premium themes/plugin marketplace would put an end to much of the controversy that surrounds this issue. Then it just becomes a matter what level of control WordPress wants to assert, if any, with respect to the licensing and pricing of such premium plugins and themes. One of the most interesting solutions discussed in our previous article was an app store-like model where the cost for any given plugin was kept at a minimum (e.g. $1 per download). Such low prices would offer less incentive for piracy, it would keep costs low for WP bloggers, and it would enable developers to provide better support as well as afford them the opportunity to create new innovative WP plugins.
How WordPress Benefits From A Premium Marketplace
I understand many in the WP community fear that such a premium repository would destroy WordPress, but the fact remains that premium themes and premium WordPress plugins already exist. It’s actually in WP’s best interest to embrace such premium themes and plugins. Doing so may allow them to maintain some level of quality control and protect WP’s public image. Currently there’s no assurance to a customer that he/she is getting a quality product when they purchase a premium theme or plugin nor is there any reassurance that may be compatible with WP. It’s not at all unheard of for a new WordPress user to be duped into purchasing some garbage plugin or theme that’s not hosted at WordPress and completely abandon WP for a competing CMS or blogging platform (Concrete5, TypePad, MovableType). It’s especially tempting for the user to do something like that if 1) that competitor can ensure some type of community based quality control for premium themes/plugins, 2) offer a centralized location where all premium plugins and themes are conveniently hosted, 3) provide a better user experience, and 4) offer better looking free themes.
Free Plugins And Themes Will Continue To Thrive
I’m confident that implementing a premium marketplace would not eliminate the free themes and plugins repository as there are plenty of advantages to offering free versions. The developer could employ any of the following strategies below to help him cover his support and maintenance costs while still offering a free plugin or theme to all WordPress users.
- Trial versions – Lets the user test the plugin/theme for free over a certain time period (i.e. 30-day free trial).
- Paid upgrades – The user gets the free version which doesn’t include features offer in the premium version
- Paid support – Developer only gets paid when the user requires support
- Paid commercial licenses – Allows full access to the theme or plugin for personal use, but businesses must pay a licensing fee
- Advertisements – Includes permanent ad/link displayed in the plugin or theme
- Donations – While not very successful as a sole business model, it’s still an option and could be used in combination with strategies outlined above
Matt Admits Developers Driving Force Behind WordPress
There’s plenty of room for the negotiation of a premium marketplace at WordPress.org. By ignoring the discussion and not engaging the developer community to help them maintain and support their efforts, however, Matt is not sticking to his own mantra of openness and community. Matt may have founded WordPress, and we are all very very grateful that he did, but the plugin and theme developer community is now the primary driving force behind WP. Matt himself pointed out this fact in a recent episode of Techzilla (see video below @ 08:18).
Why Developers Shouldn’t Submit Work To WordPress
As Matt explained in the video, plugins are regularly integrated into the core functionality of WordPress and they now constitute nearly all of the development for recent and future versions of WP. But what becomes of the developer whose plugin is consumed by a new version of WP? Any traffic or donations his plugin may have generated while hosted at the WordPress plugin repository are now gone. And while donations are clearly not a sustainable business model, that developer may have depended on the paid support and/or the WP related work that originated from his plugin that was hosted in the WordPress repository. Incredibly, the current system that integrates popular plugins into new versions of WordPress eliminates the only revenue models (i.e. donations, paid support) that Matt permits developers to utilize in order to have their plugins hosted at WP. In the end, developers are better off not submitting their themes and plugins for inclusion into the WP repository and hosting them elsewhere.
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Calling foul over Akismet’s model seems unfair to me. I have a WP plugin that follows the Akismet business model. The front end software (the plugin) is licensed correctly, it just happens to talk to a proprietary software service I developed. There is nothing to stop someone from making an open source server that speaks my protocol and works with the plugin I developed. My software is hosted in the WP plugin repository.
I appreciate that you’re sticking up for developers and trying to see a healthy market created around WordPress. I agree this benefits consumers and developers alike. I just don’t see attacking Matt Mullenweg as the way to get there.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 6:19 pm:
I don’t mean to attack Matt, I just would like for him to be more open to the developers. Why is it so hard for him to create a drop dead simple list of what business models are acceptable? That would put an end to the discussion.
Barry reply on June 19th, 2009 7:46 pm:
If the only way to get a response is to “attack”, then I say go for it, otherwise it is, yet again, just a lot of developers having this conversation amongst themselves and not moving any further forward or having a solid direction.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 8:06 pm:
Something definitely needs to change. Hopefully we can put our heads together and find some real answers. It would be especially helpful if Matt could address these issues directly, clear up all the questions, and take action to create some real solutions for developers.
I agree completely.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkI will not speak for Matt in regards to this post – I just want to clarify that Matt has always been upfront regarding his views towards WP theme developers. When Revolution went GPL back in October 2008, it was, and always has been 100% GPL. (not GPL-ish)
Matt clearly stated his intention towards those who chose to go this route (http://themeshaper.com/the-ethics-of-premium-wordpress-themes/#comment-5126).
I fully understand why WordPress would choose to only promote themes/sites that are carrying the GPL license – it only makes sense and maintains their consistency towards the license. For them to endorse any site that isn’t GPL compliant would come off as being hypocritical.
I’ll let Matt defend himself here if he deems necessary, just saying that StudioPress themes are and always will be GPL licensed and we’re very happy with the support community that we have built as a result of our business model.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 10:24 pm:
Thanks for clearing up that GPL-ish point Brian.
Can you explain why you chose to go open source?
That is, where you concerned about legal actions from Automattic?
Besides being in the spirit of open source and aligned with WP GPL, what do you see the benefits being if you’re themes are not in the WP.org repository, or do you have some there now?
Brian Gardner reply on June 19th, 2009 10:40 pm:
I changed licenses to the GPL for a number of reasons. I wanted to align my business with WordPress, and that’s pretty much the bottom line. I didn’t fear legal action, so it had nothing to do with that. I wanted to know that I was building my business on rock, rather than sand.
As for themes in the WP.org repository, I currently only have two there – Shades of Blue, and Code Blue.
I really believe in the power of distribution, and that at some point, Matt will actively promote those of us who are aligned with WP and the GPL license. (this possibility had no impact on my choice to go GPL, and I was never promised anything by him or WordPress to make the change.)
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 10:48 pm:
Great, thanks for answering those questions Brian.
What exactly happened to Revolution2?
Revolution 2 rebranded under StudioPress for a number of reasons. Same themes, different url.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 10:56 pm:
Oh, you left out the reasons
Brian Gardner reply on June 19th, 2009 11:03 pm:
Let’s just say that my intellectual property lawyer strongly encouraged it.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 19th, 2009 11:09 pm:
Ah, thanks Brian. You’ve been a great sport about answering my questions and I really appreciate that. I think you have cleared up quite a few answers that many have been wondering.
I wish you all the best. StudioPress is a great business and I again applaud you for being a pioneer in your field.
Kevin – you’ve misunderstood what happens with Akismet. That plugin is GPLed, you can do what you like with it, redistribute it to your heart’s content. Sell it or whatever.
The Akismet plugin talks to the Akismet server. You need a commercial license to talk to the Akismet server. The GPL doesn’t affect the service (if it did everyone would have to GPL their websites if they were visited by Firefox!)
I expect the same applies to Polldaddy but I’m more familiar with Akismet.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 1:32 am:
I understand that I but didn’t make that clear initially. What are you’re thoughts about what I said here:
“One solution to this problem is to require a unique encryption or API key (like Akismet uses) in order for your theme or plugin to work correctly which should help prevent people from pirating your work and distributing it freely.”
In that case you could have a free version of a plugin (GPLed) at WP.org and a commercial version elsewhere But are you saying the commercial version would have to be GPLed too?
Andreas Nurbo reply on June 20th, 2009 4:25 am:
The Akismet plugin is just a wrapper for the Akismet service. The plugin is useless without the key. So you wont have a free version or a commercial version of the plugin.
You will only have a free service and/or a paid for service that the plugin can connect with. The plugin will be GPL but only have code that communicates with the service.
Donncha O Caoimh reply on June 20th, 2009 4:40 am:
As the source code has to be released (and it’s PHP anyway so source is always released) it would only take a minute or two to remove the check for the key.
The key would have to serve some useful function to be left in.
A commercial version of a WordPress plugin has to be GPLed too.
In cases where a single entity owns the copyright to all the source code in a project they can license a “free” version as GPL and a commercial version with better features under a proprietary license. You can’t do this with WP because hundreds of people own the copyright to different bits of the core. They’d all have to agree to change the license.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 12:22 pm:
I see how the Akismet plugin depends on that key in order to work correctly but I don’t see why Poll Daddy requires one. There are several poll plugins that don’t require a key so what’s the advantage for those that upgrade to the paid version of Poll Daddy? The Vote Analysis feature seems to be the only difference:
“Pro account users can see extra reports for their polls such as individual vote report, voter location, and can also detect and remove fraudulent multiple votes from the same IP.” Is a key really necessary for all this? That is, these functions be operated on the plugin user’s server rather than Poll Daddy’s?
Regarding the Akismet that can be viewed as a Plugin as a Service
. The plugin is useless without connection with the Akismet service.
So the route to go is to have some form of service on the backend and use a plugin to take advantage of it. Doesn’t have to be like Akismet which only have simple messaging and reply.
You can probably go with a fullblown user interface and still have Plugin as a service that is GPL and that you cant take advantage of without paying for a key. It will be a little tricky but I can see it working.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkMaybe more like plugin on demand, or theme on demand.
To the author, even the most cursory exploration of the plugin directory would find hundreds and hundreds of plugins that are fully GPL but supporting businesses and services, including anything from Google (Adsense, Analytics, Youtube), Lijit, Flickr, Sharethis, Twitter, Paypal…
I’m not going to reply anymore on a post so obviously designed to be link bait, but if anyone feels they’ve been mislead or has any questions about the GPL or WordPress.org, please email me! I’ll do my best to respond, though it might take a few days because I’m on the road a lot.
Barry reply on June 20th, 2009 4:12 pm:
So, Google, Yahoo, Twitter and PayPal all wrote the plugins to connect to their services and added them to the plugin directory, is that the argument you are making? Otherwise I don’t understand the relevance.
Glad you popped by, but didn’t expect you to actually answer any questions in public.
Donncha O Caoimh reply on June 20th, 2009 4:32 pm:
Oh come on now Barry. It’s relevant because they’re GPLed plugins talking to proprietary services.
It doesn’t matter who wrote the plugin.
Andreas Nurbo reply on June 20th, 2009 4:54 pm:
I think its rather that they aren’t wrappers around services which you must pay for.
All the examples have open API and you don’t have to pay for the service.
SO the point aint proprietery or not but rather you must pay to use the service that the plugin connects to.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 4:58 pm:
Barry’s right though Donncha; Matt’s given the perfect opportunity to address these issues in a public arena and he claims that he’s too busy. That makes no sense whatsoever given it takes much more time to reply to each individual email than one simple comment that everyone could read for themselves.
I’m quite disappointed in Matt, I expected more out of him. His comments today only acts to further polarize WP users and question his intentions.
Barry reply on June 20th, 2009 6:10 pm:
Actually you are wrong. The whole discussion is about how plugin developers can leverage their GPL plugins to their, THEIR benefit. If the argument is that there are plugins that link to services that can be paid for in the wordpress plugins directory, BUT the authors of those plugins aren’t running the service, then how can that be relevant to the discussion?
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 4:51 pm:
Matt, the intent is to give you an opportunity to clarify to everyone in a public forum (NOT private emails) how plugin and theme developers may align the business model so that they are GPL compliant. Why not take the opportunity to end the debate/confusion once and for all? By not doing so, people question your true intentions. Especially when you ask people to email you instead, which by the way requires much more of your time than simply addressing it in public.
There is still a lot of confusion over these issues. Most people still don’t understand that when the GPL refers to “free” it means free to distribute, not free as in price. So obviously it’s still an issue Matt.
Matt reply on June 20th, 2009 5:01 pm:
I’ve done 50+ interviews and several dozen WordCamps where I’ve talked about the GPL. (Most of those presentations are online in some form.) I’ve posted probably as many comments on different websites talking about this issue, and have personally talked to most major plugin and theme developers.
WordPress plugins and the PHP in themes must. be. GPL. I don’t know how much clearer I could be.
I’m sorry you haven’t discovered a business model that’s compatible with the GPL yet, but thousands before you have and I’m sure you’ll find something, or switch to building on top of proprietary software.
If you’d like to ask me a question I’ll answer publicly, you can send it here too, or post them to the forums on WordPress.org and send me a link. I have no problem with being public, just not sure why information you deem so crucial to the WordPress world should primarily be on this random blog.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 5:16 pm:
Matt Mullenweg:
“I’m sorry you haven’t discovered a business model that’s compatible with the GPL yet, but thousands before you have…”
Really, thousands of theme/plugin developers? Do you have such a list? I bet you there are millions more that don’t totally understand the WP GPL and what business models are compliant.
Thanks for insulting my “random blog”. Call me crazy but I’ve always thought that keeping a conversation localized to such relevant articles is easier to find rather than hunting down the 50+ interviews and other stuff you refer to. It would be in your best interest to be open discussing such issues here rather than suggesting to move it to your home turf. By doing so it shows you have nothing to hide and it’s not a strategy where you can recruit fans to come to your defense and distract from the questions. I’m not saying you’d do that but that scenario presents the opportunity and I don’t think you want people to conclude that about you do you?
Matt reply on June 20th, 2009 5:38 pm:
“I don’t think you want people to conclude that about you do you?”
Wow, you’re so right. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll be back to respond after I’m done beating my wife.
Anyone with further confusion about the GPL should check out their official FAQ.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 5:46 pm:
We can argue semantics and you can dodge questions all day or you can simply answer them and be done with it. Addressing the questions helps the WP community understand, arguing makes them question your intentions. The GPL has always been there and yet people still question what “free” means. Do you really think referring people to the GPL is helpful? You can do better than that. Just address each issue one at a time and be done with it, it’s that easy.
Barry reply on June 20th, 2009 7:04 pm:
Thanks for the link to the FAQ. I note that the GPL doesn’t dictate what I can and can’t advertise on my website, but if I wanted to put a GPL theme into the WordPress.org themes list, then this is an issue.
It’s not the GPL itself, it’s wordpress.org, the powers that be and their staffs’ “interpretation” of the rules we are after, and you can only get that information from “the horses mouth”, so to speak and so far, what I gleamed from the “many interviews and posts” is pretty conflicting.
Ok, going all out on the horse metaphors, are we flogging a dead one trying to get an answer here?
Kevin Eklund reply on June 20th, 2009 7:33 pm:
You hit the nail right on the head Barry. The FAQs and the GPL do not specifically address the majority of questions the WP community has regarding themes and plugins that utilize certain business models and whether or not they can be allowed entry into the WordPress.org repository. That’s exactly why I even question whether or not it’s worth it to submit plugins/themes to WordPress.org at all. Sure, the traffic and PageRank helps but is it worth the risk of them pulling your themes/plugins if they don’t agree with what you put on your own website? That’s what previously happened when those 200 themes were pulled from the official WP repository last year. Some of those were mistakes and some were legit but to dictate what people put on their own website is BS. I say forget the official WordPress repository, I’d rather not deal with the politics and simply host such themes and plugins elsewhere. That way you can use whatever license and business model you choose.
Yes, I’m afraid that you’re correct and he’s not going to address these issues at all. He’s taking the same position as always; referring people to the WordPress GPL, which doesn’t address the questions.
Andreas Nurbo reply on June 20th, 2009 5:15 pm:
There is no, as far I am aware of, any plugin that wraps around a paid for service in the directory except for Akismet. Have not come in contact with any other similar plugin.
I know wp-e-commerce (which is in the directory) makers sell extensions to it from their website but they are not compliant with the GPL. So thats sort gray area of money making with WP.
So Matt you guys don’t have any problems with a plugin that integrates with a paid service?
Such a plugin would not have any problems getting into the directory?
Nice bullet dodging again Matt, you’re unbelievable. Pathetic, actually.
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