Hey I was wondering if anyone with GPL law history can offer some advise. We are looking to start up a web development company in the UK, and we would like to offer our customers a branded CMS solution (content management system) to manage there web sites once designed. I have talked to many programmers and we have programmers on staff, but the CMS that we can make is really just not up to company standards. I was woundering, as wordpress is under a GPL license, what are our restrictions? are we able to modify the core code, remove all links/code back to wordpress and brand the CMS as our CMS? I was thinking of getting our guys to re develope the software, change the admin structure around, re template the admin and edit the code so we can use it as our own version of wordpress. If anyone with GPL kowledge or knows the laws regarding Open source GPL i would really like to hear from you. Many thanks
With a GPL license, you can modify the script to suit your needs, but you cannot rebrand it or claim it as your own. You should always give credit to the sole owners, and that is done by a "Powered By" link. For more information, see the Official GPL Page or see this Wikipedia Page. In short, you cannot do what you are planning to do. But you can modify WordPress and make it better, and even release it, by giving credit to WordPress team and your team. You can have a name like WordPress++ and make sure credit is given to WordPress too. Also make sure that you state that it is a modified version of WordPress. I'd also recommend you to contact WordPress for more information.
Hi campolar, I Have A Similar Question, If I Make An Extension/Plugin For Wordpress Which Is Not GPL, Will That Be Violation Of GPL In General, Does GPL Says That Any Software That Will Run On Top Of Another GPL Platform (For Example A Plugin That Runs On Top Of Wordpress) Has To Be GPL... I Searched About This But Cannot Find Information On Official GPL Site
I believe as stipulated in the GPL you cannot remove the Powered By link in Wordpress. In fact I believe you also cannot use a name like Wordpress++ because that would be a violation of their trademark as well. As to modules I would consider the following from the GPL: This was written with compiled programs in mind, but the real question is how does such a rule apply to modules for things like Wordpress? It seems each CMS has sided differently concerning the matter. Think of Joomla which is trying to purge the non-GPL plugins it seems while others seem to not think of it as such a big deal.
Wordpress is not a trademark, and wordpress team wont mind him making a modified version Still he can contact them and ask...
Spoken to wordpress, it seems we can modify what we we like ( including core code). But we would need to give credit to wordpress in our version and also offer the files free open source as a wordpress deriative. You are not required to link back to wordpress. Although as they have busted there ass on this day and night and made it into a CMS/blogging system beyond most paid solutions.. i think a link back is more than worthy.. oh and its free! <3 wordpress! Thanks guys
instead of messing with GPL you can just rewrite the whole Wordpress code, there are many ways to do it ... at that point you can legally claim it your own. i wanted to make the same with Joomla but gave up as it was a too complex job to rewrite from scratch such a big cms. wordpress is smaller, you can do it.