Help understanding the licensing, please

  • Resolved tobiasmurphy

    (@tobiasmurphy)


    10 years, 9 months ago

    So I’ve done a few WP sites for friends using themes from Elegant Themes, but I want to stretch my creative muscles now and start making my own themes. However, I’m also a practical person and I don’t enjoy the idea of reinventing the wheel. I’ve been reading about how WP uses GPL and considers all derivative works (including themes) to be free to use and modify.

    Does that mean I can take any theme I get my hand on it, modify it, and call it my own? (Which doesn’t quite seem fair, but I get the idea of collaborative progress.) If so, how should I give credit to the person whose theme I built upon? If not, are there any basic, public domain themes I’m allowed to build upon so I don’t have to start from scratch?

    If I do have to start themes from scratch, can I at least use templates that already exist? Where would I find them?

    May I charge for the derivative works I produce?

    So many questions. Thanks for any answers!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    Edit: Nevermind, misread.

    https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

    Does that mean I can take any theme I get my hand on it, modify it, and call it my own?

    Yes – although it’s considered ethical to retain intellectual copyrights by attributing the theme’s original author within the theme files. The Description in the theme’s style.css file would be a good place for this.

    May I charge for the derivative works I produce?

    Yes, you can.

    Thread Starter tobiasmurphy

    (@tobiasmurphy)

    Awesome.

    One more question: how do I reconcile adapting a theme that operates under a GPL license but also claims copyright? For instance, I’m looking to build off the theme Aldehyde, but I seem to be getting conflicting information:

    License: GNU General Public License
...
Aldehyde is based on Underscores https://underscores.me/, (C) 2012-2013 Automattic, Inc.
Aldehyde WordPress Theme, Copyright 2013 Rohit Tripathi.
Aldehyde WordPress Theme is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL v3.

    Where does the copyright end and the GPL begin, or is this a gray area?

    The theme’s author hold the intellectual copyrights which means that s/he has the right to be attributed in any derivative work – like in a new theme based on Aldehyde. But theme itself is released under GPL – which means that you can anything that you want with it – even sell your version – as long as you retain the GPL license.

    In your shoes, I’d have something like:

    ThemeName is based on the Aldehyde theme by Rohit Tripathi
ThemeName is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL v3.

    in the theme’s style.css and/or readme.txt file. That should tick all of the right boxes. ??

    Thread Starter tobiasmurphy

    (@tobiasmurphy)

    Great. Thanks!

    No problem. ??

    Thread Starter tobiasmurphy

    (@tobiasmurphy)

    ?? Just marking resolved.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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