Jeff, you have an odd way of giving the GPL "a rest".

WordPress is used by millions of people. These people have the ability to modify and redistribute code which they may have learned or improved back to the community which benefits as a whole. With the large userbase, plugin and theme authors have an excellent opportunity to create something unique, offer it to an audience that the freedoms of WordPress have enabled and yet, some of these authors want to take away those freedoms by placing restrictions on the way in which you use their WordPress code.

Not all parts of a theme are "WordPress code", which is why the debate is both important and necessary. Theme developers certainly don't have the right to impose non-GPL restrictions on derivative WordPress code; however, they certainly do have the right to release their own, non-WordPress derivative code under whatever license they want.

I’m beginning to think that these authors, even though they don’t explicitly state their position, are in this game for the money and couldn’t give a damn about the freedoms for which the foundation of WordPress was built upon, couldn’t give a damn about the WordPress community, and couldn’t give a damn about giving back.

Of course they're in it for the money. What's wrong with that?

In order to develop the quality of themes that are developed, many have to develop themes as a full-time job. In order to do so, they need to be able to make a living from that work. So, of course they're in it for the money. Not everyone has the luxury of "supporting" themselves with $30MM in venture capital.

And, I would say that enough of a constituency of the WordPress community are quite happy enough with their work to make it profitable - and for that constituency, I would hazard a guess that they believe that the theme developers both "care about" them and are "giving back" quite nicely.

But, if you’re a commercial theme author who’s themes are not compliant with the GPL and impose restrictions and you consider giving back ‘releasing a free, GPL compliant theme‘ you really need to look in the mirror and question your ethics. Despite how genuine you might be with this so called method of giving back, there is no way of looking around it as a means of getting more customers to view your commercially restricted products.

See, here you're starting to drift into Richard Stallman GPL evangelism/fascism, by getting into the whole argument that the product itself doesn't matter, but rather the motive behind it is more important - that the (always subjective and ethereal) "spirit" of the GPL is more important than the letter of the GPL.

I call shenanegins.

The GPL is the GPL, as defined by the words contained in the license. The GPL does not require an author to embrace every tenet of open-source philosophy (including the RMS kook-fringe elements of that philosophy) in order to be used. A developer who contributes a fully GPL-compliant theme is giving back to the community, regardless of any actual or perceived motive behind that contribution. Period. End of story.

To call into question the ethics of a developer in that circumstance is beyond the pale.

There is nothing wrong - whatsoever - with a coder retaining copyright over code that he writes. That RMS believes that code is not copyright-able is, quite frankly, both a stupid and an irrelevant position. Likewise, there is nothing wrong - whatsoever - with making money from one's on work developing code. In fact, as you pointed out, the GPL explicitly allows for such. Further, there is nothing wrong or unethical - whatsoever - with choosing to release one's code under a license other than GPL.

I’ve seen a few business models which are aligned with the GPL as WordPress sees it and they seem to be doing just fine. The notion that you can’t align with the GPL and have a successful business model is false. So, if your business model as it relates to WordPress is not aligned with the GPL, then that model sucks.

Who are you (who am I? who are any of us?) to tell a developer that his business model sucks? What hubris such a declaration requires. If such a business model is legal, ethical, and successful, then I'd disagree with the assertion that it "sucks".

How great it must be to learn about WordPress inside and out because the source code is freely available and for theme or plugin authors to tap into this free audience and then build transparent walls around users with their products which is a slap in the face to the WordPress community.

WordPress can't have it's cake and eat it, too. It is released under the GPL, which means that it has decided to make its source code freely available. The WP community can't then complain when others use that availability to their advantage.

In the end, I say just go with the GPL and be done with it. Don’t look for loopholes, don’t argue what you can and can’t GPL, just be one with the WordPress community and embrace the spirit of open source. Anything else and you’re really just a roadblock.

Wait, no. Words mean things. The wording of the GPL means something. The issue is that those who have released WordPress under the GPL are trying to impose on others restrictions that go beyond the license. If further restrictions were desired, then WP should have been released under a license that allowed for those restrictions.

Further, I would challenge the assertion that non-GPL theme developers are a "roadblock", given that their work continues to be wildly successful - that is, people continue to purchase their themes in droves.

Some of these same businesses are helping to pay the bills by purchasing display advertising. Unfortunately, quite a few of these restriction imposing theme businesses or plugin authors are making the money and are the ones purchasing the ad space.

Paul "latched onto" this issue, as well he should have. Your stance with respect to your advertising is the epitome of hypocrisy, in light of the stance you have taken in this blog post regarding GPL.

If non-GPL developers' business models suck, then so too must your business model suck, since you depend on income generated by their business models to drive advertising money to WPTavern. So, either you don't believe that there's anything wrong with having a business model that sucks, or else you believe that having a business model that sucks is wrong yet you use the model anyway. In either case, the stance is hypocritical.

If you truly believe what you wrote in this blog post, then you would not accept ad money from non-GPL theme developers.

(Personally, I think you're painting yourself into an unnecessary box. I have no inherent problem either with non-GPL theme developers, or with you generating ad income from them.)

And going back to my first sentence: why write such an inflammatory post if your intent is to give the issue "a rest"?