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herytuj (none)     12 April 2012

Gpl and wordpress themes. split gpl ? no ! please help.

Hello. i Need help.

Wordpress is licensed with GPL.

There was famous interview between Matt from wordpress and THESIS.

Matt told them that they can eventually do SPLIT GPL license, that they MUST distribute theme from wordpress which contains code derieved from wordpress as GPL and that they can protect css and images with own copyrights.

But this is NOT TRUE according to GPL. Everything inside theme MUST be GPL. even css and images, look here:

 

Even if data not interact with program, in this case theme, but is distributed with and inside theme, as a section which is distributed with GPL - BECOMES GPL.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
:
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
when you distribute
as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License

THEME is WHOLE WORK.
SO its obvious that:
distribution does affect how somebody can license their work.

CSS and IMAGES and js are part of THEME = WORK which is GPL.
Distributed with theme BECOMES GPL even if previously someone said that are not.

 

and this companies like yootheme themeforest rockettheme mojothemes claim to have own SPLIT GPL license and they are saying that only php code is gpl and css images and js are they own license model.

And they are distributing it in one zip file containing installable theme for wordpress which contains all this php, and also css images and js inside.

 

SO they are BREAKING LAW !!!!!! They are simply violating GPL !

Even if not talking about derivation of wordpress code, they are violating GPL by distributing css and images which for them has own license, with code that has to be GPL.

So GPL extends to all files inside theme.

 

And this people claim that i am wrong and advise me to search for google !!!....

please help.



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