One 'Interesting' Tip about WordPress Themes/Plugins...

A lot of people already know this thanks to the thousands of websites telling you it online, but basically...

There is technically no such thing as a 'premium' plugin or theme for WordPress. At all.

Basically, because WordPress is released under the GLP license, absolutely every addon and theme for the script is ALSO released under the GPL license. Well, those that are publically available anyway.

Why is this important?

Because it means that if you're still giving a toss about copyrights in footers and paying for these things, you're pretty much missing out big time. You don't need to. There is nothing that any theme dev or plugin dev can do to 'enforce' any terms on their site related to their 'products'.

And those payments are, officially speaking, just support licenses. The sites themselves say the works are under the GPL, so to put it simply, the 'licenses' are basically just a mix of paying the makers for support and paying them as a voluntary donation for their work.

It's also been taken advantage of BIG TIME by people on the internet. For example, some sites like this offer an (entirely legal) selection of 'paid' plugins as free downloads with the caveat you get no support:

http://gpldl.com/

http://www.96down.com/



While others offer prices about half that of the official source under the same rules (sometimes with their own support forums for the products):

http://wpavengers.com/

https://gplclub.org/

So yeah, enjoy the free premium plugins and themes, and free copyright removal. Because the GPL licenses all WordPress themes (released to the public) are under means there's no reason to ever pay for them again. Same presumably with add ons for phpBB, MyBB, and other software under similar free software licenses.

What do you think about this? Some interesting articles have been written about these implications:

http://wptavern.com/gpl-ethics-right-wrong-winners-losers

http://www.kevinmuldoon.com/wordpress-gpl-ethics/

 

There's still major controversy, with some premium devs doing all they can to try and hide the fact their licenses don't mean sod all.

For example, a few days ago, Secunia posted an article about malicious code in torrent versions of 'premium' plugins. Not one premium theme/plugin dev actually bothered to correct the point that such things don't exist, there is no 'legal' difference between one and the other. Makes me think many of them are desperately hoping buyers are too ignorant to question the 'premium' moniker and actually look up what the GPL thing in the terms of service/license on the site actually means.

 

The GPL has a ton of misinformation and ignorance on both sides. You're also wrong with your assertion that it is "just support licenses".

Most reputable Plugin and Theme Developers don't hide the fact that their stuff is GPL, but they also don't purposely say "Hey, download a torrent of my files instead".

I think with as much time as the community puts into many of these products it often makes sense to donate to the developers or designers, but most people look at it like "haha, I can get this for free, screw paying" which just hurts the community as a whole. Its been shown again and again that for larger, more advanced applications that hook into WordPress (Gravity Forms, WooCommerce, etc...) that its impossible to survive on the odd donation from the few who will do it. People who understand this will pay for consistency and quality, even if they could get it for free because they're then biting the hand that feeds them.

Design & Code has intrinsic value, no matter what the license attached to it is. Add to that, anyone with some sense to them will realize that many people pay for plugins/themes that they can get for free for a few reasons.

• Support - if offered, I find this less a reason than most assume.
• Easy & Consistent Updates - one of the larger reasons to get "Premium" WP code.
• To support the development of something you're using - This is the biggest of the bunch. It helps to mitigate the worry of abandonware, which is rampant around any GPL community. Not that it is always bad, but just look around.

If you're honest you'll realize it makes sense for both the developer and the "buyer/user" to have a relationship that does its best to ensure that the developers stick around, update, and feel as if they're getting value from their time they invest in their applications. Just because you can get something for free doesn't mean it always makes the most sense to. Its the same reason you could download a torrent of a movie, but you still see plenty of people going to theatres. Most people don't care about the license and that it is illegal, more that its official, guaranteed to a degree, and supports future endeavors.

I work pretty close with WordPress, and I'm the head organizer of WordCamp Buffalo conference here each year. I have chatted about this topic with quite a few larger Developers and they all basically have the same sentiment.

Basically, this comes down to "don't be a dick" more than anything. Just because something can be free, doesn't mean it has to, or should be free. Free has negatives, often times more drastic.

I'd also like to point out, that GNU, the originators of the GPL explain pretty briefly but well their thoughts: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

 

Except the point of a license is that it's immutable. If I put my work under one license and someone builds on it, they can't treat it like propietary software by definition.

And it doesn't hurt the community. Just look at the old vBulletin one. Not today's dead one that IB massacred with vB 5, but the one in the old days. Pretty much all discussion of 'premium' content was banned from vBulletin.org. Nothing of value was really lost, we just got a bunch of free mods by those who wanted to support the community without personal expense (beyond the odd donation).

Still want a better example? Okay, I'm currently interested in a lot of Mario fan games and ROM hacks. Guess what? Both communities legally cannot charge for absolutely ANYTHING. They can't restrict how anyone uses their 'work', and practically speaking, everything may as well be under the GPL by definition. Hasn't stopped a very large community springing up to supply people with enormously fancy tools and resources out of pure love for the topic:

http://mfgg.net/index.php?act=resdb&param=01&c=1&o=&filter=2.6

Not one original work in those 123 pages was made for anything other than the community and possible recognition. Yet people don't stop making fan games or game mods.

And before you say 'but none of this stuff is as fancy as stuff people charge for in other niches', okay then:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD7VWxHGU4o



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ZCCp8RKJw


Practically speaking, it's all very simple; if there were no premium theme/plugin developers, people would basically replace them, and possibly for 'free'. Communities without a ton of premium content tend to end up drawing people who actually like the subject and want to help out the community, whereas the opposite tends to just draw in more and more people wanting to charge for everything. It's why IPB's mod community is terrible compared to vBulletin's, because the former let people charge for everything on the official site, so now half the resources on the site (even the minor ones) are 'premium'.

 

Ok, you're still not getting this. The GPL says NOTHING about not being able to charge for software, and proper developers aren't treating it as propietary. Point me to where anyone I mentioned is? GNU encourages folks to charge if they feel inclined. The difference is that anyone who buys it can then release it for free.

About your "Practically speaking" assumption that people will release free things as complex and consistent as the well-built applications that run WordPress, you're mistaking. Jigoshop, WooThemes, WooCommerce, Rocket Genius (Gravity Forms), etc.. will all tell you it is not scalable at this level and people even when they receive something for free will expect support threads in the .org forums to be answered. I talk to people about this all the time. You're explaining a pipe dream right now.

They don't hate when people use their applications. Hell, WooThemes built their Menu system, and then WordPress pulled it in and modified it a bit to work on Core (The Menu System that it has now 'wp_nav_menu'). WooThemes didn't get upset, they were happy it happened, and while they were on the bleeding-edge it made them some money, completely legally as well. It pushed WP forward, and gave it one of the most important features for it to be considered a "CMS".

The GPL allows folks to build all sorts of things, and its good that there are free things, but you demonizing people trying to make money of their hard work is annoying at best. Point me to the spot in the GPL that says you cannot charge for something built with a GPL License.

I really couldn't care less about a Mario game when we're discussing a CMS that powers 20% of the web. Also, comparing IPB to vB 3.x series "mods" is a red herring. vB 3.x had plenty of paid product add-ons, and still does.

 

The references to Mario games are because they prove one thing;

That people are willing to make good stuff with no possible financial or business incentives. And they were just as willing before the internet got all monetised and everything became about shops and businesses and SEO and whatever.

And where did I say it mentions about not being able to charge for software? All I'm saying is that due to the license, no one has to pay for 'premium' stuff for WordPress, Drupal and likely many other open source scripts. The devs can charge for it, I just have no reason to pay them.