The past day has brought about a subject that, frankly, many of us didn’t know we cared about. In fact, I’d venture to say that many still aren’t aware why GPL makes any difference in our daily life.
The heart of this matter stems from a debate between Matt Mullenweg of WordPress and Chris Pearson of DIY Themes. I’ll spare you the details here, but I encourage you to read our article for some back story. In short, Mullenweg disagrees with Pearson’s use of a license other than GPL for his Thesis theme.
The longer version, however, brings about a much deeper conversation. In what could be a landmark case, Mullenweg has stated that it is possible that he will take Pearson to court over the issue.
So Why Do We Care?
We care not only because WordPress powers over 3 million self-hosted blogs, but also because GPL covers so much of the software that we use on a daily basis:
- Mozilla Firefox
- MySQL
- Numerous Linux distros
- Java
The rights of those who build on these platforms are protected under the GPL. That is to say that their intellectual property is protected, and so is their right to profit from that work. While some have claimed issue with the GPL for being too wide-reaching, the overall consensus of the software world is positive.
What It Means To You.
If this case reaches courts, and chances are that it would, the sanctity of a big part of the free software movement could finally have a chance to be upheld by law. As it stands, the majority of licensing issues concerning the GPL are settled far away from courtrooms, and that has worked fine. But “every dog has its day” comes to mind as we are sitting on the verge of seeing these standards ruled over in a court of law.
If Mullenweg’s accusations are proven, then the GPL is upheld. However, if Pearson were to come out the winner of the case, then the GPL wouldn’t have legal grounds on which to stand. From that point forward, anyone who built software under the GPL would lose the protection that they are afforded at this time.
Licensing and legalities as a whole would change. Projects such as Mozilla could likely be no more, if there was not suitable licensing for it to work under. Nobody wants their work stolen, nobody wants it copied outside of specific rules. Software developers have a right to the protection of their property, and the GPL affords that.
Thats absolutely a user opinion based , if the community is happy with it then go ahead and get the GPL with the WP
Four page post with 200 words a page. What is this, a slideshow?
We’re testing, we’re collecting feedback.
The idea is to give a cleaner overall look to the site. You’re right, though, that it should have been less than 4 pages. I’ve removed a couple of the breaks.
Firefox is actually triple licensed, with GPL, LGPL, and MPL.