Archives for the 'Wordpress' Category
Thoughts on Derivations of WordPress Themes
Today I came across this post (nofollowed) by an individual who uses Bogart for the theme of their site. In his post, the author shares how to add a single line of code in two pages of the theme which will make the new tagging feature of the soon to be released WordPress 2.3 available.
While I applaud the author for taking the time to provide his tutorial to the WP community, I’m a bit disturbed by the fact that this person feels he now has the right to (a) re-brand the theme as “Bogart 0.6 Taged” [sic], (b) redistribute the theme from his own forums (which require registration), and (c) place a credit link back to his site in the footer of the re-distributed theme essentially giving himself credit as a “co-author” of Bogart. All without making any attempt to contact me.
Yes, I’m aware I released Bogart under a GPL (General Public License) — perhaps a mistake on my part — and that the license essentially allows this individual to modify and redistribute the theme as he likes with minimal restrictions. But I have to wonder — does this person ethically have the right to claim contribution (authorship) by simply reading how to do something on another blog (as his post claims), and then adding (perhaps copying and pasting?) one line of code into two different files of the theme? Does that really seem right? Does the GPL honestly allow for those kind of derivations?
Not only that, but since this individual made his changes without any kind of error checking, the theme will break should it be used with a WordPress install prior to 2.3. Could his actions potentially taint my reputation as the original author? Should I be responsible for helping someone who has issues with the modified theme?
I wrote Bogart from from scratch starting at line one. I’ve put many hours into making the design what it is. Josh Cook was kind enough to offer to widgetize the theme at a time when my schedule wouldn’t allow for it. As a thank you, I chose to list him as a co-author. He made a solid contribution to the project and earned credit for it. Now someone comes along, adds two lines of code (well, one line really), and says “Look — I’m part of this too!” Should I honor the GPL license and allow him to take credit for the “change” he made or not?
I think there are bigger questions that need to be addressed here as well; Where should the line be drawn on derivitave works under the GPL? What honestly constitues genuine change or contribution to a GPL’d project? Should the originating author be informed of changes before or after they’re made to a GPL project? Should they be informed at all? Am I just being a whiny sissy and overreacting to the whole thing? To me, it just doesn’t feel right. I’d love to hear what others think about the limitations — or freedoms — of the GPL, and whether the actions of this individual seem appropriate to them.
Technorati Tags: WordPress, General Public License, GPL
Bogart Gains Some Ground, and a Point
I’m pleased (and somewhat puzzled) to share that my Bogart theme has done far better than I ever expected it would. To me, it’s just one of those “kind of there” themes compared to some of the awesome designs that have shown up on the WordPress scene as of late.
Even still, it’s managed to find its way onto a few favorites lists recently — which is kind of neat. To those who’ve included me on your lists; I’m honored & humbled to be included among so many other talented theme authors. Thanks for the props.
Naturally, due to this notoriety, I’ve been motivated to fix some of the niggling little inconsistencies that bugged me — most of those being with the sidebar widgets. I think I’ve managed to get most of the little quirks ironed out, and it looks much nicer when using widgets than it did. I’ve decided to officially release my latest changes as version 0.6, which can be downloaded from the Bogart page. Go grab it now if you use it.
I’ve also set up a SVN repository on Google Code to manage the project. The latest trunk can be anonymously checked out at this link. You’ll always be able to get the latest changes (be they good or bad) there.
And finally, to top it off, I plan to set up a separate sub-domain (bogart.jimmitchell.org) in order to let the public get a feel for the theme in action. That’ll be sometime next week — maybe. We’ll see what my schedule turns into over the next few days. Um, make that today, because I’m just funny that way. If I don’t get it off my mind, it’ll drive me nuts until I do.
Rumors of My Demise Are Somewhat Exagerated
Funny how time can slip away from something when you’re focused on other ventures. As most of you know, I took up playing music again a few months back. Since then, I’ve managed to wind up committing myself to 2 substitute positions, and another 2 forming bands. If there’s anything that can be said for me, it’s that I just can’t say no when I should.
With all the learning/re-learning of material for the new gigs (we’re talking almost 150 tunes here), my several projects have been put into holding patterns. Once I get a little more settled (as in drop a sub slot, and one of the bands), then I should be able to focus on coding stuff again.
So, with that in mind, here’s the tentative plan;
Yasu will get one more minor update, then I’ll start working on the next major version that will add some cool, and unique features.
Tom at NoName Scriptware has turned over Cache Out X to me completely. It turns out there are still a lot of you out there who use it. You’ll be happy to know that I plan to re-write it from the ground up sometime this summer and release it as the next major version (5.0). Tom was kind enough to let me know that COX got a magazine call out in the 6/07 issue of MacLife. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have even known about it. Thanks Tom!
My Wordpress themes will be getting overhauls sometime this summer too. Bogart still needs some work (as do Ala Moana & Plane Jane), even though it was listed as one the 100 favorite themes of Andrew Eglinton over at Desperate Curiosity. Thanks Andrew! I’m honored to have been included with such talented company.
I’ll be adding a new WordPress theme to the stable as well. It’s very preliminary right now, but it’ll be nice — and sparse. I like sparse. Sparse is good.
An finally, I’d like redo the site to better focus on my apps and themes, instead of the weblog so much.
So there you have it. Lots of work to do this summer. Add to that rehearsals & gigs (drop me a line if you’re a SoCal local and would like to come to a show), as well as the day job being busy as ever (no summer sabbatical this year), and you can see why it’s been nearly a month and a half since my last post.