My views : Wordpress is open source and I think is under the gnu licence, there for, all themes publicly realised should come under that licence. I'm not sure of the exact terms but I don't think footer encryption or anything else is allowed. I think selling footer links is alright, as long as they are editable by the user.There's be a lot of talk about this recently and it's starting to get a bit out of hand. photo blog matt, one of the makers of wordpress is backing google with sponsored links on template. Is it not hypocritical that they have their links on every default install? same with this http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ guy. He gets his crap on the wordpress admin panel and has chosen to "follow" matt and the google gang. your thoughts?
Only themes that are based off of other themes that are licensed under the GPL or LGPL are legally required to be licensed under the same license. Themes that are developed without code from other GPL projects (clean themes, developed from scratch) do not have to be licensed under the GPL. Just because Wordpress is GPL, doesn't mean that 3rd party add-ons such as themes have to be licensed under the same license. They can be licensed anyway you want as long as the code is clean of GPL code. However, starting from the Kubrick theme (as most designers do) means that you're modifying a GPL licensed theme, and are required legally to provide the source code back to the originating project. I think the majority of the themes out there started from Kubrick, and are on shaky ground if they try and circumvent the GPL. The GPL requires that all derived work be licensed under the same principles/license. Any Kubrick based theme licensed otherwise is illegal.
Thanks for clearing that up. What about footer protection encryption? it's fine on the themes, but when they are put onto the word press cms system and are activated themes on the blog does the GPL or gnu have any effect?
The GPL should have no effect as long as the theme doesn't have any GPL code in it. It doesn't matter if you use a non-GPL theme with Wordpress. Activating and using a non-GPL theme does not somehow make it subject to the GPL. Just because Wordpress is GPL, doesn't mean that non GPL licensed add-ons (such as themes) are somehow magically forced to comply with the GPL because they're activated on a Wordpress site. The GPL only applies if you're making derivative work using GPL licensed code, or if you decide to license your work under the GPL. Clean code (non-GPL) is clean code (non-GPL), regardless of where it's used.