Photo credit: Nick Findley

So there’s this debate that’s been going on for a while. WordPress is an open source software licensed under GPL. Even though I support and have released items under GPL, I shamefacedly admit this GPL thing is awfully confusing and don’t always ‘get it’. To make matters worse, there’s GPL v2 and GPL v3

What I do know is this:

1. If the plugin (or theme) uses the parent software’s functions extensively, then the theme should fall under the GPL license too. But WordPress themes are too tightly integrated and cannot stand on its own without WordPress itself so it is very, difficult, almost impossible to avoid this.
2. You can sell a GPL’ed software/theme/plugin. That is not against the GPL rules however. If you sell it, you must release to the buyer, the same rights as you have. Freely modifiable and allowed to resell to others. Just as you can sell and distribute WordPress itself, you must however pass those rights along to your buyer.

Which means, the selling of premium themes and plugins definitely is legal. But the problem is, most premium themes have restrictions. That’s why you have the one site, or developers’ license. But, if I read GPL right, buying and selling the theme is OK. Restricting my usage however, is not.

To muddy the waters even more, premium themes are not marketed as GPL so rightfully, you should be able to restrict usage. But get this. Because a theme is so tightly integrated with WordPress and WordPress is GPL, all themes are supposed to inherit the GPL license from WordPress. In short – you’re not really supposed to release a non-GPL licensed WP theme.

I’m not even sure where I’m going by posting this. But it does make you ponder doesn’t it? But don’t get me wrong. I am not against premium themes. In fact, I really, really like them. As someone who also develops themes for free so far, it has crossed my mind to sell my themes as well.

This is somewhat unsettling as I am not sure I want to promote themes as an affiliate if it isn’t quite kosher. Know what I mean? What’s your take on this?

P/S: I decided to make this post an entry in Problogger’s group writing project – Killer Titles. Been working on improving my blog titles lately. A good experiment to see where this goes. Thanks Darren for the opportunity.