[theme-reviewers] GPL and limiting usage

[Otto]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Trent Lapinski <trent at cyberchimps.com> wrote:
>> If the copyright holder says that the terms are GPL, then the terms
>> are GPL. Period. No magic coding trickery can make it "incompatible"
>> with those terms.
>
> Just because you claim something is GPL does not make it true.

If you are the copyright holder, because you *wrote the damn thing*,
then it absolutely does make it true. Every single time, without fail.

Only the copyright holder has the power to license the work. That's
the whole point of copyright.


> There are plenty of people who release code under the GPL and violate the terms, and there have been several lawsuits on this matter. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html
>
> The GPL is not the same as copyright, there is no inherent law granting you the right. If you release something under the GPL that is not GPL compatible, it is a GPL violation and you lose the privilege to claim your code is GPL compatible.

This is so wrong that I honestly don't know where to start.

Time for quick copyright school lessons:
- The creator of a work gets the copyright to that work. This gives
them all the rights to it. Nobody else has any rights to it at all.
- The copyright holder can give those rights to others. They can do it
freely, or make it subject to conditions. The conditions are called
the "license".
- The GPL is a license like any other. It is the contract by which the
copyright holder gives you, the person with no rights, the ability to
exercise those rights from the copyright holder.
- The copyright holder cannot violate their own license. The very
notion of this fundamentally misunderstands how licenses work. The
license applies to you and everybody else. Not to them.


> If you look at the violations page, one of the questions to determine if there is a violation is: "Is the available source code complete, or is it designed for linking in other non-free modules?"
>
> This is exactly what we're discussing.

Violations can only occur to licensees. Not to the licensor.



> PageLines is releasing a supposedly GPL compatible theme linking to a plugin that forces users to pay a subscription validated through the use of a priority API to use supposedly GPL compatible code. This is a violation of the GPL and renders both the theme and plugin as non-compatible with the GPL, and WPORG policy.

This has no bearing on the GPL in any way whatsoever. The theme/plugin
are licensed under the GPL because *their author says so*. That's the
end of it, really.

Whether it violates policy or not is a fair debate. I say it does not.


> When it comes to policy on .org, the question is do we allow themes or plugins to upsell priority non-GPL themes and plugins? The answer as I understood it was a resounding no. You yourself said this is not allowed, so I'm not sure why you're claiming this situation is different then what it is.

The issue isn't about "non-GPL". If they say it's GPL, then I accept
that, and it's GPL. Done.


>> Now, the review requirements go far beyond GPL, and that's fair
>> enough. But there is no real case where you would ever need to "modify
>> a pro theme heavily" to be GPL-Compatible. Whoever told you that this
>> was the reason was mistaken.
>
> Actually they weren't wrong. This has been WPORG policy for over 3 years now as Chip mentioned.

If the theme review team has been incorrectly interpreting the GPL and
using it in a mistaken way, then I'm very saddened by that, and I
offer my assistance to correct and educate the team in any way that I
can.

-Otto