[theme-reviewers] GPL-Compatibility

[Bryan Hadaway]

Yes, there's an especial ignorance in the WordPress community as well about
trademark law.

I think the root of the problem still lies in people's misunderstandings of
what open source and free actually mean.

We're moving from a mindset of anything being released under GPL being a
complete free-for-all, to a more mature understanding that just because
someone releases a photo, code or whatever under a GPL-compatible license
does not grant free reign to do whatever you like with it, like
re-releasing or using its mark in a manner that has you claiming ownership,
causing brand and consumer confusion in the marketplace.

I've also seen some behavior where even if someone understood copyright and
trademark law (for the most part), they simply didn't care anyways,
brazenly disrespecting other people's rights.

Imagine if another group was to create a CMS, totally unique and separate
from WordPress, but, they decided to name it WordPress. Can you imagine how
confusing that would be, especially for the average Joe (general
population) that's not tech-savvy?

WordPress would be on top of that like crazy, not because they're trying to
be bad guys, shutting down the competition or spitting in the face of
innovation, because it infringes on their trademark. And it's not just a
personal matter either, WordPress has a legal and ethical obligation to
protect its trademark (especially after registering it with the USPTO), to
protect the community, to make sure they know where to find the official
WordPress instead of downloading possible fakes that contain malware or
getting scammed out of money.

And it doesn't matter if that other CMS is better, and good for them if it
is, but, they need to come up with their own unique name for it and build a
brand on that instead of infringing other people's hard work building up an
established trademark.
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