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It’s your blog, you can do (almost) anything you’d like.

It’s fine to remove if that’s what you want.

I don’t think it is fine to remove it at all. In fact, I’m sure it contravenes the terms of the GNU GPL to remove it. A similar issue arose with PostNuke as well, and that’s how it turned out.

“In fact, I’m sure it contravenes the terms of the GNU GPL to remove it.“

No it doesn’t. It has nothing to do with the GPL, and though it’s preferred around here that users retain something on their blog which notes their use of WordPress, they are in fact free to add or remove anything, including the “powered by” link.

it would be best to give some credit where its due. but its your site, always your call. ??

Hi,

Actually GNU GPL demands the copyright being left in in the source code _somewhere_.

I *ALWAYS* remove openly readable copyright notices of GNU GPL software, it’s the one thing which easily and quickly identifies the software make to script kiddies, it’s easily searchable through the searchmachines and it literally screams “hello, you know how to hack me, do it!”.

I also usually remove any hints in source code which turn up in search and leave them in where I’m sure they won’t. Additionally I never publish addresses of such installations in their relevant support areas or all those “brag yours”-lists.

I’ve been doing this ever since script kiddies nearly took down the shared server of my host (who thankfully is very competent in these respects) and had a good long talk with him. The measures above are a result of this discussion.

What I usually do is set up a special and static “credits page” in which I use gifs to visually display link code towards the software origins which I want to credit.

That PostNuke – of them all and with their background – tries to force their users to turn a wide open flank is pretty arrogant, dangerous and a tad too selfserving for my taste. It’s a reason why I’d never use it and have told everyone who asks me to not touch it with a 10 ft pole.

Greetings

LHK

I do agree it is is a good thing to give credit where credit is do, but also as was pointed out, there may be some reasons where someone may not wish to ‘advertise’ which software powers their site. The GPL’s requirement to maintain copyright notices and such is probably comparable to how you would see source material cited in academia, as it basically requires you to cite the source of your source. It doesn’t specify that output from the programme needs to contain links or notices or anything like that, I would argue that in the time frame of the GPL development, many programme at the time would generate output that would only be seen by a developer and not necessarily a laymen end-user.

GPL is a copyleft license type, not a copyright – meaning it uses the license to protect the users rights to use, modify, derive from and redistribute the work. It is almost the opposite of a copyright, which creators use to protect their own rights and restrict the rights of the licensee. I’m fairly certain that WordPress is not 100% original source, it does contain derivative work in it, as you can see if you browse through some source code. If the GPL required a programme licensed under it to carry links or notices on the output, then it could be argued that any derivative work would be required to maintain those notices. So if you imagine if a relatively small programme like WordPress had to maintain public notices on its about with citations to every piece of included source, the footer or wherever these citations would be placed would probably take up several pages on their own. Though I’m not really a user of Linux, I’ve never noticed any glaring lists of credits in the interface and as Linux is licensed under GPL and is a high-profile licensee of the GPL, one could assume if there was such a requirement to list a “powered by?? in the output, that a lawsuit or some test-case about not having the citations in the output would have come about by now and as far as I’m aware, I haven’t heard of one here in Canada nor anywhere else that I can recall.

Keeping the code comments intact fulfils the requirements of the GPL, but I don’t think there is a requirement to display any such notice in the output from that code. But again, I think giving credit is a respectful thing to do and part of what makes offering that credit meaningful, is that no one is forced to do it, one does it because they choose to.

Cheers,
Michael.