Author: Richard Best

The GPL and assumptions of automatic inheritance

Published by Richard Best

Here’s the thing There’s a smallish matter relating to the interpretation and application of the GPL that it might help to clear up. It concerns the topic of the GPL and inheritance. References in this post to the GPL are to version 2 of the GPL. What we read on the web When reading various articles on WordPress and the GPL, as well as articles on the GPL in other contexts (such as the Drupal context), it is fairly common to find references to ‘inheritance’, to the effect that ‘a derivative work inherits the GPL’. Here are some examples I’ve come across on the web: “a derivative work inherits the benefits of the GPL”; “[d]erivatives of WordPress code inherit the GPL license”; “[i]f a plugin or theme makes a call to any WP function then that plugin or theme technically falls under GPL. Which pretty much means, any distributing theme or plugin inherits the the GPL regardless if it’s being sold or freely released”; “if you make a derivative work of GPL licensed code, your …

WordPress themes, the GPL and the conundrum of derivative works

Published by Richard Best

Meet ‘theme’ In the beginning (of WordPress that is) there was no separate theming system as we know it today. Rather, the theming system that we now know and love was added in version 1.5 (“Strayhorn”), in February 2005, and has been enhanced numerous times since then. Today, the humble theme – responsible for the layout, look and feel of a site – is a key and swappable component of virtually every WordPress installation and, as most WordPress users know, for those who don’t wish to develop their own theme there is a dazzling array of readily available themes to choose from. Evolution of commercial themes and their licensing As WordPress became more and more popular and as people began to see and leverage its value, it was inevitable that new business models would emerge. One such business model was the development and sale of premium/commercial themes. Turning to the topic of licensing (and putting what the GPL may require to one side for now), the owners of such businesses could license their themes: in their …

The legal risk of continuing to email someone who unsubscribes from your email list

Published by Richard Best

Let’s set the scene In all likelihood, and for good reason, WordPress is the most popular blogging tool/CMS for those who wish to engage in online content marketing with a view to building an email subscriber list and sharing valuable content with those who have subscribed. These days, there are countless integrations between WordPress and email campaign providers like MailChimp and Aweber, it’s easy to enable social sharing, membership sites can be built with WordPress fairly easily, it’s easy to enable digital downloads, the list goes on. For this reason, many WordPress users will be collecting email addresses, sending email newsletters and campaigns, and so on. I turn now to Pat Flynn’s superb Ask Pat podcast, a spin-off of his Smart Passive Income blog and podcast. I do that because it was an episode of his podcast that gave me the idea for this post (thanks Pat). For those who don’t know, in his Ask Pat podcast, Pat takes recorded questions from members of his audience and answers them in the podcast. In episode #212, …

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Using the WordPress trademarks for your business, product or service

Published by Richard Best

Introduction If you’re a budding WordPress developer, designer or entrepreneur, you may be whipping up a creative storm and readying it for release. It might be a theme shop, a Gravity Forms-quality plugin, a WordPress-tailored hosting environment, a WordPress support agency or an app-making platform. The product or service is nearing release and you’re amping to “get it out there”. You love WordPress and you want to sing its praises from the rooftops, including in some way in the naming, description or marketing of your product or service. What better way to access your target audience than by using “WordPress” and its associated marks left, right and centre. Right? Well, before you go using the WordPress name and logo in your naming and marketing, you might want to note that Automattic Inc and (more significantly now) the WordPress Foundation have a bunch of trademarks. Make sure you stay on the right side of the line of what’s permitted and what’s not. To help you understand all this, I’ll explain what a trademark is, Automattic’s and …

The GPL and the story of WPScan and Vane

Published by Richard Best

The debate By now, many in the WordPress community will have heard about the WPScan/GPL debate. Personally I was a bit late to the party on this one but, thanks to a tweet from ManageWP this morning, I’ve now read a bit about it. I’m not expressing a legal conclusion Now, I don’t want to wade into this specific debate and try to express a legal view on what’s right and wrong here because I don’t know the facts well enough. Instead, I’m just going to state a few propositions that I believe reflect copyright law (in many countries) and the requirements of the GPL. I leave open how they might apply to this situation and, to be clear, I’m not providing any legal advice to anyone that reads this post. My usual disclaimer applies (I know that sounds a bit OTT but I’m just exercising a lawyer’s caution). The propositions So, without further ado, here are those propositions I mentioned: Sole copyright owner can do what she wants:  A person (or company), lets call …

Understanding the GPL licensing of WordPress

Published by Richard Best

Licensing As I’ve noted previously, WordPress is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. The text of version 2 of the GPL has accompanied every release of WordPress since its inception, in the license.txt file included in each download. Originally, and until version 3.2 of WordPress, the license.txt file was a verbatim reproduction of the GPL, with no reference to b2 or the WordPress contributors. Matt and his co-developers had, instead, included full attribution to b2 and Michel Valdrighi in the readme.html file included with each download. For example, in the open source spirit that pervades the WordPress community and which Matt has championed from the outset, the readme.html file in version .71 of WordPress said this: “WordPress is built from b2, which comes from Michel V. We wouldn’t be here without him, so why don’t you grab him something from his wishlist?” Nice. As WordPress matured, each download continued to include a license.txt file and a readme.html file but, with the release of version 3.2 of WordPress, Matt and his co-developers …

Automattic, open licensing and open data

Published by Richard Best

The open spirit of WordPress Everyone knows that the founders of and contributors to the WordPress software at WordPress.org wholeheartedly embrace the spirit of open source software. The GPL (the open source licence under which WordPress is licensed) sits at the centre of what they do and Matt Mullenweg, for example, speaks passionately about the GPL and champions the cause it represents (and those that defy the GPL’s requirements (or spirit) when the community thinks it applies (or should be applied) may, well, be frowned upon). Here’s an example of Matt speaking about the GPL: From software to other creative content Whilst copyleft has its origins in the software world, the open source software movement is now a subset of the larger world of open licensing and open data. Various licences and tools exist to enable people to share not only their software but also their creative content and other data on standardised terms that are quick and easy to put in place. Automattic’s generosity Not surprisingly given its founders, Automattic has always contributed back …

Legal checks when building a content-driven WordPress website

Published by Richard Best

Introduction Recently I’ve built two blogs (both running on WordPress of course). The first is this one and the second is a blog for a group of lawyers in the United Kingdom. The purpose of the second blog is to enable the lawyers to share their knowledge and thoughts on a particular area of practice with clients, potential clients and the wider legal community. As well as building the site, I also attended to the usual legal and related issues that arise with a content-driven website like a blog, just as I did for this site which is similar in many ways. I’ve done this sort of thing many times in the past, for myself, for colleagues and for clients. Each time I do it, I run through a range of legal and related checks in my mind that ought to be covered off. I thought it might be useful to document the checks for others building similar sites. The purpose of this post, then, is to do exactly that. The checklist covers the kinds …

How to build a contract generator with WordPress and Gravity Forms

Published by Richard Best

Background and introduction I purchased a Gravity Forms developers licence back in October 2009. It was one of the best WordPress-related purchases I’ve ever made, as the forms plugin has gone from strength to strength over the years and is now so polished, with so many useful add-ons, that it can truly convert WordPress into an app machine of sorts. In the intervening five years, I’ve put Gravity Forms to all manner of uses, including making a number of contract and licence generation tools with it. Among other things, I’ve used it to build: a website terms of use, mutual confidentiality agreement and privacy policy generator (see ubuildcontracts.com); a Creative Commons licence chooser that built upon the code output of the Creative Commons licence chooser by adding government-specific elements to the code to reflect guidance in the New Zealand Government Open and Accessing Licensing framework (known as NZGOAL) (I’ve since taken this licence generator down); and a generator that enables one to build a fully populated instance of a Government Model Contract for Services, with …

Would you like a privacy policy like mine?

Published by Richard Best

When I was getting WP and Legal Stuff ready for release, I drafted the privacy policy that is linked to in the site footer. I did this because I would probably be collecting personal information (e.g., names of commenters and email addresses) and it was appropriate, therefore, that I let people know what I’m collecting, who can see it, what I’ll do with it, and so on. When drafting the policy, it struck me that this is something that other bloggers and site operators – whose structural set up is similar to mine – may also need or wish to do. If you’re in this position, please feel free to create your own policy based on mine. To help you out, I’ve whipped up a form that takes a small number of inputs and then spits out a version of my privacy policy but with my details removed and your details inserted. The form and output are based on a few assumptions: that an individual is operating the blog / site; the site is externally …