←
→

blueswirls wordpress theme

Filed Under Category Uncategorized by titanium

The theme this website is based on is called greymonger and it is released under the GPL- this means that anyone can play with it and modify the code. It also means that the code of the modification must also be released under the GPL licence.

The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL:

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

So here you go, the theme I use. It’s simply an archive of the theme folder, with the images slightly modified.
blueswirls.tar.gz This is just the theme folder, not the full website.

(update: 28 July 2009) Perhaps the best way to license this theme is under the Creative Commons “share alike” license.

July 17, 2009 | |

COMMENTS

 

Comments RSS

6 Responses to “blueswirls wordpress theme”

  1. hari on July 17th, 2009 8:44 am

    GPL doesn’t *require* you to share the modified code unless you actually distribute the theme.

    Actually with PHP it doesn’t make a lot of sense. When you share it, you share it code and all.

    Merely modifying and using it for your own needs is perfectly acceptable without being forced to share that with the world at large. That’s my reasoning at least.

  2. hari on July 17th, 2009 8:45 am

    Here’s the relevant FAQ:
    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic

  3. ray on July 17th, 2009 12:01 pm

    I thought that the lawyers WordPress hired said that the PHP calls should be GPL but the CSS shouldn’t? Basically, Matt Mullenweg (WP Founder) wants everything to be GPL, but the licence doesn’t necessarily cover all code. For example, your swirls are a design and so are covered by the CSS code but as they are art they don’t fall under the GPL.

    Make sure you don’t licence yourself too tightly.

    Nice theme though :)

  4. ray on July 17th, 2009 12:06 pm

    See here but the important bit is

    When WordPress is started, it executes various routines that prepare information for use by themes. In normal use, control is then transferred via PHP’s include() function to HTML and PHP templates found in theme package files. The PHP code in those template files relies on the earlier-prepared information to fill the templates for serving to the client.

    On the basis of that version of WordPress, and considering those themes as if they had been added to WordPress by a third party, it is our opinion that the themes presented, and any that are substantially similar, contain elements that are derivative works of the WordPress software as well as elements that are potentially separate works. Specifically, the CSS files and material contained in the images directory of the “default” theme are works separate from the WordPress code. On the other hand, the PHP and HTML code that is intermingled with and operated on by PHP the code derives from the WordPress code.

    In the WordPress themes, CSS files and images exist purely as data to be served by a web server. WordPress itself ignores these files[1]. The CSS and image files are simply read by the server as data and delivered verbatim to the user, avoiding the WordPress instance altogether. The CSS and images could easily be used with a range of HTML documents and read and displayed by a variety of software having no relation to WordPress. As such, these files are separate works from the WordPress code itself.

    [snip]

    In conclusion, the WordPress themes supplied contain elements that are derivative of WordPress’s copyrighted code. These themes, being collections of distinct works (images, CSS files, PHP files), need not be GPL-licensed as a whole. Rather, the PHP files are subject to the requirements of the GPL while the images and CSS are not. Third-party developers of such themes may apply restrictive copyrights to these elements if they wish.

    So images and CSS do NOT need to GPL’d.

  5. Alison on July 17th, 2009 5:19 pm

    oh well, no one can say I’ve violated the license. :) I won’t panic about maintaining a strict version history though.

  6. titanium on July 27th, 2009 11:34 pm

    Perhaps what the creator of grey monger meant to do was release the CSS (as a work of art) under the CC share-alike license.

Leave a Reply