[theme-reviewers] Theme License Declaration

Tue Oct 12 14:32:50 UTC 2010

Perfect example, actually.

I would put something nearly identical in the Codex, when we bump up the
criticality to *required* for the header tags.

Chip

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Edward Caissie <edward.caissie at gmail.com>wrote:

> This is what I am using (from the latest version of Shades):
>
> ...
>> License: GNU General Public License v2
>> License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
>> */
>>
>> /* Revision date: Sept 9, 2010, v1.6 */
>>
>> /*  Copyright 2009-2010  Edward Caissie  (email :
>> edward.caissie at gmail.com)
>>
>>     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>>     it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2,
>>     as published by the Free Software Foundation.
>>
>>     You may NOT assume that you can use any other version of the GPL.
>>
>>     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>>     but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
>>     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
>>     GNU General Public License for more details.
>>
>>     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
>>     along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
>>     Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301
>> USA
>>
>>     The license for this software can also likely be found here:
>>     http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
>> */
>>
>
> Which was borrowed heavily from Otto's (suggested?) text for use with
> plugins discussed in a completely unrelated place and topic.
>
> I am not putting this forward as *the* way to document a theme's licensing,
> this is just an example of what I believe could be a potential starting
> point of "boilerplate" example text that may be suitable to use.
>
>
> Cais.
>
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net>wrote:
>
>> Right now, we require *either* a full-text license.txt file, *or* the
>> header tags, which does ensure that the Theme is GPL-compat.
>>
>> The reason that I bring it up is that I'm seeing a few Themes that have
>> license.txt only. The issue with *only* a license.txt file is that a bundled
>> file really isn't an explicit license declaration. So, for developers for
>> whom the differences between GPL versions (primarily, GPLv2 vs GPLv3), it is
>> important that the Theme explicitly state the license.
>>
>> (Technically, IIRC, GPL-licensed code should have both a copyright
>> statement AND a license statement. And derivative works should retain the
>> original copyright statement along with the copyright statement for the
>> original content. But, that's delving far too deeply into licensing issues
>> than we need to deal with, IMHO.)
>>
>> At the moment, I'm listing as a "strongly suggested" comment to add the
>> header tags. I like the idea of making header tags *required* as part of the
>> 3.1 version-specific changes.
>>
>> Chip
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:13 AM, Edward Caissie <edward.caissie at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Currently the requirement we look for is GPL-compatible as far as themes
>>> go; and, the basis of this topic, as I read it is how do we recommend a
>>> theme be clearly documented as GPL-compatible for inclusion into the Extend
>>> Themes repository?
>>>
>>> I like the idea of using "header tags" in the style.css title block as it
>>> would be a minimal load to add a couple of lines to that particular
>>> mandatory file. While a full copy of the relevant license text is nice to
>>> include, appropriate link(s) and verbiage would suffice as I see it.
>>>
>>> Personally I have taken to adding "header tags" to all of my themes as a
>>> proactive/preemptive measure, if this is an acceptable method of indicating
>>> a theme's GPL compliance then I would suggest this as a possible requirement
>>> to fall in line with the release of WordPress version 3.1
>>>
>>>
>>> Cais.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greetings, all,
>>>>
>>>> I've been thinking: in light of Hakre's recent escalation of the, erm,
>>>> license discrepancies with WordPress core*, I'm wondering if we shouldn't
>>>> look at making the License/LicenseURI header tags *required* for Themes at
>>>> some point in the near future? As we've seen with WordPress, merely bundling
>>>> a full-text license really isn't sufficient, and can lead to
>>>> assumptions/misunderstandings/problems later.
>>>>
>>>> What do you think?**
>>>>
>>>> Chip
>>>>
>>>> * Is WordPress "GPL", "GPLv2", "GPLv2 (or later)", "GPLv2 (may NOT
>>>> assume any later versions)"? As it turns out, based on the actual copyright
>>>> notice (and that of its predecessor, B2), WordPress is merely "GPL".
>>>>
>>>> ** Personally, I just like the standardization of using header tags. But
>>>> merely liking the standardization, IMHO, isn't sufficient reason to require
>>>> header-tag use. The license confusion issue, though, might be.
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
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