Would WordPress Sue The Maker Of Thesis WordPress Theme? - Mixergy Interview

> Ultimately, it is a matter of interpretation, but all previous interpretation, including those made in courts of law, pretty much universally agree with Matt on this one.

There have been no court cases I'm aware of that have dealt with this in the context of a GPL program. There are, however, numerous cases where the code being called was not GPL, and they have pretty much universally ruled that the FSF position is wrong--blob of code X calling into blob of code Y does NOT make X a derivative work of Y.

It seems to me that Matt went into it not wanting to sue, and is now considering it. That's a change of direction, if not opinion.

If it's just function calls to the Wordpress code, I still can't see how it can be considered derivative. He also does not distribute Wordpress along with his theme. It's the user's job to put them together. This to me means it's separate and not derivative.

This just exemplifies the viral nature of the GPL and why businesses need to seriously consider using any code that involves the license.

This entire situation is a little hypocritical to me (for HN). Whenever there is an article about the piratebay (or piracy for that matter), there is usually a barrage of comments about how piracy is okay, it helps the content provider (because it's getting more usage), and it doesn't hurt or harm the original author.

Now that it involves the GPL (a person defending their copyright/license ownership..just like the record and movie industries), the majority here are singing a different tune. This just means that it has nothing to do with what's right and wrong, but political ideology.

I guess I'm the only one who saw Matt as the obnoxious one in that conversation? He kept putting words in Chris' mouth, playing slap-fight, and making snarky statements like, "Oh, I'll be sure to consult you in the future before I say anything." And the worst was when he said that "literally the whole legal community except for one guy in Florida" agrees with his interpretation of the GPL. That's just ignorant and irresponsible. About as bad as citing three clearly biased pro-GPL organizations as your sources for why you're right.

Look, I agree that Chris probably overstated his position in the WP community. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to call himself one of the top 3 most influential people in WP. However, I feel that his reasons for not wanting to go GPL are legitimate and for some reason Matt can't seem to understand that Chris is making a stand on principle here, not just revenue. I also understand his frustration. He's getting pounded left and right, sometimes with vicious personal attacks, mainly based on Matt's specious arguments. He's fed up, he's tired of the talk, and he wants Matt/WP to take action if they really care that much about it.

As far as I am concerned, if they really believe Chris is in violation of the license, WP can and should take action to try to shut down Chris if he doesn't comply, including legal action. They are fully within their rights to do that. But please, don't just sit back and spew half-truths and try to tear down the guy's reputation. As the old saying goes, if you're going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk.

I guess the problem, especially in the US, is that no case has gone to judgment. It also doesn't help that certain states show certain biases in interpretation. Notice that a lot of patent cases go to Texas?

My presumption on some of the cases where the GPL has been most successful without going to judgement is that those have been the ones where there is the clearest infringement (i.e., Linksys 'borrowing code' for their routers, etc), i.e., direct copies or only slightly modified versions of the original source.

If it gets far enough, I think it will come down to a layperson's (judge or jury) interpretation (based on lawyer and witness arguments) on whether a theme is like reselling a modified car (i.e., Ruf Turbo - a modified Porsche), or an aftermarket car stereo (i.e., one that reverse engineered an automaker's proprietary connector). Yes, code is intangible, unlike a car, and there are places where my overly simplistic analogy breaks apart, but it's not unheard of to look at it in this manner. A federal judge recently compared mp3 torrent sharing to playing music in a business - not that similar, but in the grand scheme of things, you can see some parallels.