Comments on: Matt Mullenweg And Automattic’s Double Standard For WordPress Theme And Plugin Developers?

By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:32:15 +0000

Nice bullet dodging again Matt, you’re unbelievable. Pathetic, actually.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:33:06 +0000

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.

By: Barry

Barry — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:04:27 +0000

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?

By: Barry

Barry — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:10:02 +0000

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?

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:46:54 +0000

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.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:38:08 +0000

"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.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:16:15 +0000

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?

By: Andreas Nurbo

Andreas Nurbo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:15:29 +0000

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?

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:01:49 +0000

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.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:58:58 +0000

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.

By: Andreas Nurbo

Andreas Nurbo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:54:05 +0000

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.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:51:17 +0000

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.

By: Donncha O Caoimh

Donncha O Caoimh — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:32:57 +0000

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.

By: Barry

Barry — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:12:14 +0000

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.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:59:05 +0000

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.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:22:06 +0000

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?

By: Andreas Nurbo

Andreas Nurbo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:44:11 +0000

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.
Maybe more like plugin on demand, or theme on demand.

By: Donncha O Caoimh

Donncha O Caoimh — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:40:36 +0000

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.

By: Andreas Nurbo

Andreas Nurbo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:25:09 +0000

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.

By: Kevin Eklund

Kevin Eklund — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:32:27 +0000

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?