[theme-reviewers] Theme License Declaration

Tue Oct 12 14:46:25 UTC 2010

I'm in agreement as well, as you guys know if its written with the tag in front like the examples the future versions of wordpress & wordpress.org can find those licenses for automation a bit easier

- Phil
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marty Martin 
  To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:34 AM
  Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Theme License Declaration

  For what it's worth, I agree.  I think some soft of license statement in the theme, even if it's just in style.css needs to be there.

  Marty

  On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:

    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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