ACF Premium addons (and in general). GPL confusion.

  • I choose not to post at the Advanced Custom Fields Plug-in page as this is a support question and is also a discussion in general.

    Working now with a client that have purchased a Premium Theme (GPL) with Advanced Custom Field (GPL) included + ACF Options Page Premium Addon.

    But i was getting a little confused as the ”ACF Options Page”-PHP file clearly states that it’s GPL (have also seen forks of the addon in the wild). So far so good.

    But in the Read Me, and i quote:

    This software is NOT to be distributed, but can be INCLUDED in WP themes and Plugins: Premium or Contracted. If you include this software within a premium theme or premium plugin, you MUST remove the acf-options-page-update.php file from the folder.

    On the addon page at ACF site:

    This premium Add-ons has a multi-site license! You may use this add-on in multiple any website projects You may include this add-on in a premium (not free) WP theme or Plugin

    Love ACF, and it’s one of the most popular WordPress plug-ins, so i was surprised that i haven’t seen any discussion about this. It’s like i missed something (if i had, i will go back to my secret cave). I have seen similar in other premium plugins and themes.

    Note that this is no discussion about paying for plugins/themes (got no problem at all with that).

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  • Steveorevo

    (@steveorevo)

    Love ACF too, but this simply violates GPL. It cannot prevent or inhibit other GPL code from being distributed. This is a fundamental of GPL. If ACF Options worked with non-GPL code (ie, not WordPress, this would be fine).

    If he doesn’t want update services (a more reasonable request, that follows GPL), SaaS does not necessarily apply to GPL and it could be inhibited outside of its distribution by requiring a passcode to access such services. Here, he suggests removing a line of code. That’s not GPL friendly either. Rather, he should make the service portion (furnishing updates in a timely manner) a paid service requiring credentials to function.

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