[theme-reviewers] theme-reviewers Digest, Vol 1, Issue 67

Tue Jun 15 13:06:07 UTC 2010

RE: Licensing ...

I've been adding the "title block" line:

License: GPL2
>

... to all of my plugins, and more recently I have been adding it to my
themes that are released into their respective repositories (or anywhere for
that matter) as a matter of course. It's simple and helps provide an
important piece of information in a common area.

I also include a short blurb about the GPL2 license as well in an
appropriate place such as a comment in the style.css file of the theme.

Cais.

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 6:59 PM, <
theme-reviewers-request at lists.wordpress.org> wrote:

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>   4. Re: Licensing (Joseph Scott)
>   5. Re: Distilled Review (Joseph Scott)
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:47:00 -0600
> From: Joseph Scott <joseph at automattic.com>
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Licensing
> To: chip at chipbennett.net
> Cc: "theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org"
>        <theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTilVNO_AMPHsBiE3grDjmWnssRGGvfXJPBVUKuV- at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:20 PM,  <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:
> > Out of curiosity: have there been discussions otherwise? I've always
> > understood that GPL, GPLv2, GPLv2 or later, GPLv3, and
> > non-GPL-but-compatible licenses are all acceptable for the repositories.
>
>
> The short answer is yes.  The longer answer is that there are, under
> certain conditions, incompatibilities between versions of the GPL.
> Not something we need to dwell on at this point.
>
>
> >> - Part of this theme has terms that are not compatible with the GPL,
> >> specifically the font they include (see LicenseForSansationFont.txt).
> >> The entire theme needs to be under terms that are GPL or compatible.
> >> Lately fonts have been an issue for themes because many fonts have
> >> terms that are not GPL compatible.
> >
> > I'm assuming the theme is using @font-face?
>
>
> It's including a JS encoded font file as part of the theme distribution.
>
>
> > Probably where I start to veer slightly off-topic, but: I'm wondering if
> > the repository guidelines could be clarified (or even loosened a bit)
> with
> > respect to things like fonts and icons (see below), so that fonts/icons
> > that are freely distributable are acceptable in themes hosted in the
> > repository?
>
> As long as the licensing terms are compatible with the GPL fonts/icons
> are fine.  The easy way to remember this is that a theme (all of the
> theme) should grant the same freedoms that WordPress itself does.
>
> > 1) A listing of known GPL-compatible icon sets would be awfully handy in
> > the Codex.
>
> Anyone is welcome to start and maintain such a list.
>
>
> > 2) A little wiggle room with the repository guidelines would also be
> > helpful. There's not a whole lot of GPL-compatible icon sets out there
> > that developers can bundle with their themes. The Tango and Drupal
> > (lullbots?) icons are nice and all, but they don't need to be ubiquitous
> > for WordPress themes. :)
> >
> > I currently use FamFamFam Silk, but am looking into others, because
> > CC-By-SA isn't GPL-compatible. Which is a shame, because Silk is one of
> > the most gorgeous, most useful icon sets around.
>
> Icon sets like Silk are fairly nice, and common.  Has anyone asked the
> author about providing them under other terms besides CC?
>
>
> >> - The credit link in the footer appears to be SEO'ing for 'Blog
> >> Designer'. ?I'd expect credit link text to be relevant and accurate,
> >> in this case I'd think something like 'Diabolique Design' or
> >> 'diaboliquedesign.com' would be better. ?In general credit link text
> >> would be the name of the theme, or the site/person being linked to.
> >> Sadly WP themes have a history of being abused for ad/promo links as
> >> well as SEO'ing for specific terms. ?Those are abuses I don't want to
> >> see in the theme directory.
> >
> > Yes, please! Keep a tight rein on footer links.
> >
> > Maybe even set formal guidelines that footer links must:
> >
> > a) Link to the ThemeURI or AuthorURI, and
> > b) Use as anchor text either the Theme Name or Author Name
> >
> > That would seem to be more than reasonable to me.
>
>
> Most theme authors have been pretty good about this sort of thing, but
> it might be worth spelling out.  Perhaps tack it on to
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review ?
>
>
> --
> Joseph Scott
> joseph at josephscott.org
> http://josephscott.org/
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:53:14 -0600
> From: Joseph Scott <joseph at automattic.com>
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Distilled Review
> To: mail at tomlany.net
> Cc: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Message-ID:
>        <AANLkTilDRjJXY8jQd19piX55wez-rJQnMtbujK7cpYY3 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Tom Lany <mail at tomlany.net> wrote:
> > Thanks for the note.
> >
> > I noticed that DB query, too, but didn't know how concerned I should be
> > about those. ?It would probably be best for the author to use the
> > get_the_author function instead, as all they appear to be doing here is
> > pulling an author name. ?If they wanted to pull more information,
> > http://codex.wordpress.org/Author_Templates might be a starting place.
> ?I
> > would agree that this query should be probably be removed, but we might
> want
> > to get feedback on why it was included.
> >
> > I also noticed that ./lib/pngfix.js has an MIT license. ?Is this
> acceptable?
>
>
> That's fine that particular item, but I didn't see anything that
> indicated licensing terms for the whole theme.  Perhaps it is time to
> require a license.txt file for every theme, or a "License:" line as
> part of the theme header block in style.css.
>
>
> --
> Joseph Scott
> joseph at josephscott.org
> http://josephscott.org/
>
>
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> End of theme-reviewers Digest, Vol 1, Issue 67
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