One of the most talked ...
WordPress vs. Thesis: The battle is over.
This tweet pretty much sums up the whole post:
If you’re not familiar with the background, however, the Cliff’s Notes version comes down to Thesis Theme using a license other than GPL, which created a conflict between Thesis Theme creator Chis Pearson and Matt Mullenweg, of Automattic (the parent of WordPress.com).
For more in depth coverage, please take a look at our original post about the subject, and then the follow-up as well.
Suffice it to say, we’re happy to see that Pearson will be working under GPL. It is worthy to note, however, that Thesis is now licensed under a GPL split. We could go into the various legalities surrounding split GPL licensing, but I believe that Twitter user @jschuller explained it best:
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Discussion - 18 Comments/Pingbacks RSS feed for comments on this post
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Yet more on the GPL, WordPress themes, and the implications for MySQL storage engines | DBMS2 -- DataBase Management System Services
[...] called Thesis needed to be GPLed has been resolved in practice – it will be. More precisely, the parts that WordPress developers and the Free Software Foundation said need to be GPLed will be G…, while the rest won’t be, those parts being, in essence, the more “artistic” [...]
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t3n-Linktipps: Safari-Schwachstelle, WordPress vs Thesis, Facebook-Fakten, Salesforce, Tipps zur Selbständigkeit » t3n News
[...] Thesis-Theme-Entwickler Chris Pearson gibt im Lizenzstreit mit WordPress nach und will sein Premium-Theme künftig unter einer GPL-Lizenz veröffentlichen, wie es von Matt [...]
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Lawsuit Averted As WordPress and Thesis Settle Differences Over Themes And The GPL | Technology News and Information for Geeks
[...] Free (libre) and open source software is one of the best examples of an alternative to restrictive copyright, but even within these communities there can be heated debates about licensing. The WordPress community just witnessed such a debate between the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, and the developer of a popular premium WordPress theme, Chris Pearson, over whether or not themes are subject to the GPL (WordPress’ license). The GPL applies to derivative works of a program—requiring that they, too, must be licensed freely—but Pearson maintained quite publicly that he wasn’t subject to it and could use a proprietary license for his theme. This caused tension between him and Mullenweg, until last week, when Pearson gave in and switched to a split GPL license. [...]
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Lawsuit Averted As WordPress and Thesis Settle Differences Over Themes And The GPL | It's... just a dot
[...] his theme. This caused tension between him and Mullenweg, until last week, when Pearson gave in and switched to a split GPL license. Without getting too bogged down in the legal details and community politics, the dispute is of [...]
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How could the WordPress Vs Thesis Theme Licensing Debate Affect Magento? | Tom Robertshaw
[...] battle appears to be over, with Thesis now sporting a split GPL license. This means that the PHP is available under GPL, [...]
- The WordPress GPL Timeline | WPCandy
I hope this interview with Chris & Matt helped bring them together. I have a lot of respect for both of these guys:
http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-matt-mullenweg/
Wow, I am surprised. I’m glad that Chris found a way to do this and still maintain his dignity and control. I guess I wasn’t off when I wrote this: http://bit.ly/alf3IW
hey brad good post. i’m a real person. do people always spam your site?
Yup
No spam here buddy I wrote a post that pertains to the story and Andrew had them live via Skype that really brought this to the public’s eye. Sorry if you think that leaving a link to my post is spammy but I think it 100% applies to possibly why Chris chose to concede.
Brad my apologies if it came off spammy it was not my intent. I happen to read the TNW all the time, matter of fact I subscribe to the feed:)
Bob, no worries, we welcome discussion and alternative commentary.
And yet. I get the feeling, it is not over.
It’s unclear to me what this means for the price of Thesis; a theme I would love to use but have no intention of paying that much for.
I’m really unimpressed with Thesis. It has some wierd bugs, is quite hard to modify, and the developer has been talking about a ‘upgrade’ to version 2.0 for over a year.
Now this? I feel like Chris is just in this for the money. I keep finding hardcore thesis followers who sing praise for it, but having come from a background of modifying existing themes to achieve what i need, thesis is a headache.
So the $164 i’ve paid for the developer edition… i don’t feel it’s anywhere worth it.
Which software hasn’t a bug?
Why would someone with your capability want to purchase a thesis, when you can do it yourself?
When is it not common for a software company to delay their launch or push back the release date of the final version of their product?
Why am I defending Thesis? — Because it’s the first paid theme, and boy have I paid for a lot (makes me wonder if I should have picked up programming when I was younger so I could do it all myself for free!), that didn’t give me headaches trying to customize my site’s cosmetics.
So perhaps Chris is in it for the money, why not? It helps keep the lights on don’t it?
Do I think Thesis should be made freely available then? Why, of course, it’d save me $87 bucks which I could spend on Starbucks. Oh wait, I could save that money and make coffee in the kitchen myself, but I think I’ll still go to Starbucks, like I’d do the same for Thesis.
I paid $87. I think it’s worth it and more.
I hope it really is over. Jason, why do you get that feeling?
I think it’s strange that this GPL-issue is so much discussed. There is a much bigger GPL-issue in the media world (HPT, NMT, XBMC, Boxee) which doesn’t get any attention at all.
What’s happening?:
Boxee.tv is distributing a fork of GPL v2 XBMC Media Center software. They ship this software with a closed source unique executable without license. At the moment, they only offer a downloadable version of their Media Center but very soon they will release Boxee Box (shipped with this software).
XBMC.org (a community driven Foundation) and Boxee are friends (Boxee donated a substantial amount of money) but there is a third party, Voddler.com, involved who did exactly the same thing. XBMC.org went hard on Voddlers’ copyright infringement but they don’t mind Boxee; to me this is a very strange and disputable attitude. Especially since xbmc.org has many downstream suppliers, which should be protected.
When your talking about commercializing GPL: Both Boxee and Voddler are financed by Venture Capital. In total around 35 million US-dollar…..