[wp-hackers] [ wp-hackers ] A question about donation link

[TobiasBg]

Hi,

> One of the questions asked here is about removing the authoring attribution
> on a theme page footer. Asked that to the Free Software Foundation and the
> answer is that deleting the theme author attribution from the theme page
> footer violates the GPL license. Exactly, violates the section 2c of GPLv2
> and sections 5d and 7 for GPLv3.
> 
> So, the author attribution from theme's page footer cannot be removed as it
> violates the GPL terms.

I'm not a lawyer, but from my understanding of GPL2,section 2c, this only applies if one redistributes the theme, i.e. creates a new theme from it and (e.g.) offers it for download.

If you only change/modify your copy that is only running for you, and you are not re-distributing the code, then you can also modify the footer in question, and can also remove any code/text/notices/links from it.
For me, that sounds like the "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish." from the definition of Free Software.

Best wishes,
Tobias