WordPress the open-source software project is licensed under the GPLv2. This license grants users and developers the following freedoms. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can…
When it comes to selling commercial WordPress products, it’s common for developers to use a myriad of plugins to handle different aspects of the site. For example, Easy Digital Downloads handles commerce while the Software Licensing add-on addresses license keys. Depending on the complexity and the number of products involved, maintaining and configuring such a…
WordPress.com released a new video on its YouTube account entitled Welcome Home. In the 15 second video, featuring music from Childish Gambino, photos are taken with a iPhone in various locations. Near the end of the video, the WordPress app is opened displaying a post with one of the images captured by the phone. The…
One of the highlights of WordCamp Minneapolis 2014, was the panel discussion on commercial WordPress products. The panel was filled with successful business minds sharing their knowledge of running commercial WordPress products and services. Each of the panelists shared their story on how they started their business. One thing they all have in common is…
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, I sat down with Japh Thompson to discuss his experience working at Envato for the past four years. Thompson worked in support before becoming the WordPress Evangelist for ThemeForest. In the interview, we learned what it was like to be a liaison between a huge theme marketplace and the…
Iain Poulson recently published a post that asks an important but easy question to answer. Will WordPress be a Plugin Business Killer? The post is based on the idea that features from a commercial plugin added to WordPress could kill the business based on that plugin. The short answer to Poulson’s question is no. Here’s…
SellWP is a brand new service created by John Turner, who is also the developer of SeedProd. The goal of the service is to eliminate the stress and hassles of selling WordPress products allowing the developer to concentrate on the product itself. Some of the most difficult aspects of running a business such as licensing,…
A child theme is defined in the WordPress codex as a theme that inherits the functionality of another theme, called the parent theme. Child themes allow you to modify, or add to the functionality of that parent theme. A child theme is the safest and easiest way to modify an existing theme, whether you want…
In this episode, Marcus Couch and I sat down with Chris Wallace, co-founder of UpThemes and discussed in detail the reasons behind the open letter published by the company. We learned how Chris got involved with WordPress theme development and the circumstances leading to the creation of UpThemes. Chris explained how hard it was to…
On this weeks edition of WordPress Weekly, Chris Wallace founder of UpThemes.com will be our guest. We’re going to dive deeper into the reasons why their open letter was written and published to the WordPress theme community. We’ll talk about what the state of WordPress themes are in 2014 and what UpThemes plans are for…
In this episode of WordPress Weekly, we were joined by Jonathan Atkinson of Cr3ative.com and discussed what it’s like to make a living using ThemeForest. We dived into a number of topics including: Using ThemeForest as a launch platform The reputation of ThemeForest Can theme authors profit while coding themes the right way How theme…
A few days ago, we mentioned an article by WPShout.com that explained how to find live examples of WordPress powered sites using themes. Today, I wanted to share a new site that’s been launched called WordPress by Example. It’s a WordPress specific search engine designed to showcase sites using themes related to search terms such…
The questions are simple but the answers are not. Can a theme that is built for developers using best practices be successful in the commercial space? Can a commercial theme add value without adding functionality and bloat? Those are the questions that a trio of WordPress developers are going to try to answer with their…
The membership plugin Your Members has announced that they are ceasing operations. Your Members, which has been around since 2008, was one of the early successful commercial plugins in the membership space. The tale of the plugin’s demise is an interesting one because it has more to do with development than anything else.
Kevin Muldoon has published a great post that may change the mindset of both WordPress end users and developers. In his post, he talks about WordPress, GPL, and ethics but further into the post, he mentions that perhaps we should not be thinking about what sites like GPL Avengers or GPL Club are doing as…