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Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

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Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#11

Post by caseysoftware »

csomar wrote: post #3

The behaviour of both parties is, at best, childish. Thesis is clearly breaking the law (as WordPress has defined it -and rightly so-); but it should not ignite more than a tweet or a blog post by Matt. Matt can also go a long way as suggesting not to buy non-GPL licensed products for WordPress. I don't really understand Matt aggressive (and childish) reaction. He is obviously not in the same play field, size or ambi…

The law != the GPL. This is a matter of (potentially) breaking licensing terms, not the law.

Worse, this is a personal vendetta at this point. There is no legitimate reason why Matt/Automattic should own thesis.com or would try to invalidate the trademarks.

The worse part is that project leaders set the tone and establish acceptable behavior for the project. Instead of saying:

"Chris is a $%^#$& and breaking the license, let's follow the legal path."

Matt has said (publicly by his actions and supposedly privately):

"Chris is a $%^#$& and breaking the license, let's harass him personally and destroy his business."

Bad, bad precedent.

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#12

Post by caseysoftware »

powertower wrote: post #8

The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. One way to get around some of it, is to use WP as a data store and management layer, with your own 2nd layer on top of it, that does use WP's functions to pull that data out, but is not a theme that has to be installed nor activated.…

With the WordPress API, you can do exactly that: http://v2.wp-api.org/

Which would completely decouple the front/back ends and therefore, you could have a separate license on each.

More importantly, if WordPress/Matt/Automattic wanted to fight that the entire API community would be on opposite side because of the implications.

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#13

Post by chc »

caseysoftware wrote: post #11
csomar wrote: post #3

The behaviour of both parties is, at best, childish. Thesis is clearly breaking the law (as WordPress has defined it -and rightly so-); but it should not ignite more than a tweet or a blog post by Matt. Matt can also go a long way as suggesting not to buy non-GPL licensed products for WordPress. I don't really understand Matt aggressive (and childish) reaction. He is obviously not in the same play field, size or ambi…

The law != the GPL. This is a matter of (potentially) breaking licensing terms, not the law. Worse, this is a personal vendetta at this point. There is no legitimate reason why Matt/Automattic should own thesis.com or would try to invalidate the trademarks. The worse part is that project leaders set the tone and establish acceptable behavior for the project. Instead of saying: "Chris is a $%^#$& and breaking the lice…

Copyright law is the law. Breaking the GPL and continuing to use and distribute the GPL-licensed software means violating copyright law. So I'm not sure why you'd say it's "not the law."

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#14

Post by caseysoftware »

caseysoftware wrote: post #11
csomar wrote: post #3

The behaviour of both parties is, at best, childish. Thesis is clearly breaking the law (as WordPress has defined it -and rightly so-); but it should not ignite more than a tweet or a blog post by Matt. Matt can also go a long way as suggesting not to buy non-GPL licensed products for WordPress. I don't really understand Matt aggressive (and childish) reaction. He is obviously not in the same play field, size or ambi…

The law != the GPL. This is a matter of (potentially) breaking licensing terms, not the law. Worse, this is a personal vendetta at this point. There is no legitimate reason why Matt/Automattic should own thesis.com or would try to invalidate the trademarks. The worse part is that project leaders set the tone and establish acceptable behavior for the project. Instead of saying: "Chris is a $%^#$& and breaking the lice…

I just thought of another set of implications:

WordPress Foundation is the non-profit that owns the WordPress trademarks and source code. Automattic is a commercial entity working to "defend" the trademark and attack a license infringer. And Matt Mullenweg runs both organizations.

If they're using funds from the commercial to support the non-profit and Matt Mullenweg runs both organizations, who's behalf are they acting on? Are they really separate organizations? Legally they are, but in practice, is that the case?

Does this begin to create legal liability because a) WPF isn't really being a non-profit; or b) Automattic has been attaching requirements to their contributions and support?

I honestly don't know. I'm wondering.

Ref: http://torquemag.io/wpf-automattic/

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#15

Post by chc »

powertower wrote: post #8

The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. One way to get around some of it, is to use WP as a data store and management layer, with your own 2nd layer on top of it, that does use WP's functions to pull that data out, but is not a theme that has to be installed nor activated.…

> The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine.

Running code through an interpreter or compiler has never in the past been held to create a derived work under the GPL. Linking with a library is pretty much the definitive example of what the GPL views as a derived work. I'm not sure how you see this case as particularly odd.

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#16

Post by michaelpinto »

You know I started to dive back into WordPress very recently after a few years and there are a few things I noticed:

- Commercial themes are the selling point of the WordPress ecosystem. The themes are what gets a user to use WordPress in the first place, because it solves a real world problem (examples: you need a portfolio site, you need an urban bar site or you need a real estate site).

- That said the quality of WordPress themes can be terrible. They can have conflicting plugins or terrible security holes. So the quality of the developer base is uneven at best (quite a few script kiddies).

- WordPress still feels like it's stuck in the year 2008. The usability has only grown more complex, yet the functionality feels stuck in the web 2.0 era.

- Automattic is not a unicorn, in fact I feel that it's doomed. Right now the open web feels like it's in deep trouble, and WordPress just isn't mobile first platform. This should have their management in panic mode, but it does not.

- For example there should be a way to wrap a WordPress site into an app. Yes there are third party solutions that do this, but Automattic should be doing that. In fact WordPress should have done that in say 2010.

- There are also a number of third party plugins that allow you to create a web page sort of like InDesign, but they're all terrible hacks. Again this is something that Automattic should do, but doesn't.

- Even the branding of WordPress is a convoluted mess. I find myself time and time again explaining the difference between WordPress.com and self hosting the software itself.

So in the end you have a product that is too complex for a normal person (this is why squarespace or facebook pages do well) yet it's a platform that tech people feel is a bit of an old hack.

But what's sad to me is that this feels like a reflection of the dead end that the open web has become.

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#17

Post by pdonis »

chc wrote: post #15
powertower wrote: post #8

The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. One way to get around some of it, is to use WP as a data store and management layer, with your own 2nd layer on top of it, that does use WP's functions to pull that data out, but is not a theme that has to be installed nor activated.…

> The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. Running code through an interpreter or compiler has never in the past been held to create a derived work under the GPL. Linking with a library is pretty much the definitive example of what the GPL views as a derived work. I'm not su…

> Running code through an interpreter or compiler has never in the past been held to create a derived work under the GPL.

That's true, but the article mentions an interesting twist that might not be so clear. The key statement (which, AFAIK, is a direct quote from the FSF) is: "Subclassing is creating a derivative work." In certain programming languages (Java is the example given in the article), you can't write code without subclassing one of the classes built into the language (in Java, you have to, at a minimum, subclass Object), so if subclassing is creating a derivative work, you can't write a program in such a language that isn't a derivative work of the language. Even in languages that don't force you to subclass to write a program at all, there can still be a large set of programs that can't be written without subclassing (for example, in Python 3 any time you use the class statement you are subclassing, at a minimum, the built-in object class).

I don't think the FSF's intent was to make any Java program a derivative work of Java, or any Python 3 program that uses the class statement a derivative work of Python. But if so, they need to qualify their bald statement about subclassing being a derivative work.

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#18

Post by JonathonW »

powertower wrote: post #8

The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. One way to get around some of it, is to use WP as a data store and management layer, with your own 2nd layer on top of it, that does use WP's functions to pull that data out, but is not a theme that has to be installed nor activated.…

It might, if PHP were distributed under a copyleft license that cared about such things. PHP is not (it's licensed under a BSD-style license [1], which permits redistribution under another license with attribution).

I'm actually having trouble finding an interpreted language (and accompanying standard library) that is licensed under a copyleft license. Python isn't (the PSFL isn't copyleft); Ruby isn't (it's dual-licensed under 2-clause BSD and a Ruby license that's their own); Perl isn't (it's dual-licensed under GPL and the Artistic License, with an explicit note by Larry Wall that scripts are not considered derivative works for GPL purposes).

[1] http://www.php.net/license/3_01.txt

Re: Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress: A Conflict of Ideology

#19

Post by steventhedev »

pdonis wrote: post #17
chc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last time I looked into the WP theme GPL issue, by some of the mentioned logic, every PHP script ever written and distributed would end up being a derivative work of the PHP engine. Running code through an interpreter or compiler has never in the past been held to create a derived work under the GPL. Linking with a library is pretty much the definitive example of what the GPL views as a derived work. I'm not su…

> Running code through an interpreter or compiler has never in the past been held to create a derived work under the GPL. That's true, but the article mentions an interesting twist that might not be so clear. The key statement (which, AFAIK, is a direct quote from the FSF) is: "Subclassing is creating a derivative work." In certain programming languages (Java is the example given in the article), you can't write code…

You hit it on the head. IANAL, but I would argue that there are two good ways to go about arguing that a theme is not an infringing derivative work:

1. The parent class (more to the point, the interface which must be copied to be compatible as a theme) is not sufficiently specialized to be copyrightable in the first place.

2. Even if the code is derivative, the use and intent in copying is fair use because it was done to be compatible with the greater Wordpress system.

Sadly, because of the names involved (subclass, etc), I doubt that any judge without specific programming knowledge would rule that subclassing isn't automatically derivative.

My gut feeling is that those two idiots are on a collision course to sue each other. I'd say it'll be fun to watch the fireworks, but it's a bit hard to enjoy them when they're aimed at you.

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