Saturday 22 June 2013

Applying Wordpress Licensing to Your Projects



On the grounds that the b2 stage was basically improved and discharged under the
Gpl, the Wordpress programming (all present and future emphasess of the plat-
structure) must likewise comply with the Gpl, by law.
As a result of the way of the Gpl,
you, your nearby neighbor, or I could do the precise same thing with the
Wordpress stage. There is nothing halting you, or anybody, from taking
Wordpress, giving it an alternate name and re-discharging it as a totally dif-
ferent venture. Ordinarily, open source activities are forked when the first ever
venture improvement stalls or is relinquished (as was the situation with b2) or
(in extraordinary cases) when the larger part of the advancement neighborhood is conflicting
with the administration of the open source venture. We positively aren't propose
ing you do that on the grounds that Wordpress has a standout amongst the most animated improvement
neighborhoods of any open source venture we've run across.

Regular users of WordPress software system would like ne\'er concern themselves with
the GPL of the WordPress project in the slightest degree. Regular users of the platform have
to do nothing special to abide by the GPL. You don’t got to pay to use the
WordPress software system, and you aren’t needed to acknowledge that you’re
using the WordPress software system on your website. (That said, providing on your    Book I
site a minimum of one link back to the WordPress {web website|internet site|site|computer|computing machine|computing device|data processor|electronic computer|information processing system} is common courtesy    Chapter a pair of
and a good method of claiming thanks.)

Most regular users of WordPress aren’t even conscious of the software system licensing
because it doesn’t have an effect on the day-after-day business of blogging and business
their sites with the platform. However, it’s not a foul plan to coach yourself
on the fundamentals of the GPL and check out to make certain that any plugins and themes
you use together with your WordPress installation abide by the GPL so you
have peace of mind that each one applications and software system you’re mistreatment area unit in
compliance.
Knowledge of the GPL should increase dramatically if you develop plugins or themes for the WordPress platform. we tend to cowl WordPress themes in Book VI, and WordPress plugins in Book VII.
The public licensing that pertains to WordPress plugins and themes wasn’t
decided in an exceedingly court of law. this opinion of the simplest (legal) practices
is just that, opinion. The opinion of the WordPress core development
team, yet because the opinion of the software system Freedom Law Center (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Freedom_Law_Center), is that
WordPress plugins and themes area unit spinoff works of WordPress and,
therefore, should abide by the GPL by cathartic the event works beneath
the same license that WordPress has.

A spinoff work, because it relates to WordPress, could be a work that contains
programming whose practicality depends on the core WordPress files.
Because plugins and themes contain PHP programming that decision WordPress core functions, they have faith in the core WordPress framework to figure properly and, therefore, area unit extensions of the software system.
The text of the opinion from James Vasile from the software system Freedom Law
Center is offered at http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-
are-gpl-too.
To maintain compliance with the GPL, plugin or theme developers cannot
release development work beneath any (restrictive) license aside from
the GPL. nevertheless, several plugin and theme developers have tried to
release material beneath different licenses, and a few are booming
(from a moneymaking standpoint). However, the WordPress community
generally doesn’t support these developers and their plugins and themes.
Additionally, the core WordPress development team considers such works
noncompliant with the license, and so, the law.
WordPress has created it in public clear that they\'re going to not support or promote
any theme or plugins not in one hundred pc compliance with the GPL. If you
are not one hundred pc compliant with the GPL, then you can\'t embody your
plugin or theme within the WordPress Plugin Directory hosted at http://
wordpress.org. If you develop plugins and themes for WordPress, or are
considering dipping your toe into that pool, copulate in accordance with the
GPL so your works area unit in compliance and your smart standing within the
WordPress community is protected. Table 2-1 provides you a fast review of
what you\'ll (and cannot) do as a WordPress plugin and theme developer.

The one and solely thanks to make certain that your plugin or theme is one hundred pc compliant with the GPL is to require the subsequent few steps before you unharness your development work to the world:
? embody a press release in your work that indicates the work is free
beneath the GPLv2 license within the license.txt file, that WordPress
will (refer to work 2-2). as an alternative, you\'ll embody this statement
within the header of your plugin file:

This program is free software; you\'ll distribute it and/or modify it beneath the terms of the antelope General Public License, version 2, as printed by the Free software system Foundation.

This program is distributed within the hope that it\'ll be helpful, however with none WARRANTY; while not even the inexplicit pledge of state or FITNESS FOR a specific PURPOSE.  See the antelope General Public License for additional details.

You should have received a duplicate of the antelope General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free software system
Foundation, Inc., fifty one Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301
USA
? don\'t prohibit the utilization of your works by the amount of users per
download.
? If you charge for your work, that is compliant with the GPL, the licens-
ing doesn’t modification and users still have the liberty to change your work
and rerelease it beneath a unique name.
? don\'t split the license of different files enclosed in your work, like CSS
or graphics. though this observe complies with the GPL, it won’t be
approved for inclusion within the WordPress Plugin Directory.

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