A few days ago I wrote about the GPL debate between Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg. I know many of you are not remotely interested in this debate though I really think this is an important discussion and the end result could dictate how premium themes are developed over the next few years.
When I posted about this issue on Thursday I was still not sure if the Thesis framework was violating the GPL license. I now know that it is.
Andrew Nacin, a core developer of WordPress, noticed that some code in Thesis was copied directly from WordPress. One of the original developers of Thesis, Rick Beckman, has since come forward and apologised for copying this code.
Even if code was not copied in Thesis, it would still be violating the GPL license as all WordPress themes have to be GPL. This is because any code, be it a plugin or theme, which is built on a GPL platform has to be GPL as well (one of the main features of the GPL license). Mark Jaquith explained this really well... Archive for the Views Category
Jul
18
2010
Another Post About Thesis And The GPL License
A few days ago I wrote about the GPL debate between Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg. I know many of you are not remotely interested in this debate though I really think this is an important discussion and the end result could dictate how premium themes are developed over the next few years.
When I posted about this issue on Thursday I was still not sure if the Thesis framework was violating the GPL license. I now know that it is.
Andrew Nacin, a core developer of WordPress, noticed that some code in Thesis was copied directly from WordPress. One of the original developers of Thesis, Rick Beckman, has since come forward and apologised for copying this code.
Even if code was not copied in Thesis, it would still be violating the GPL license as all WordPress themes have to be GPL. This is because any code, be it a plugin or theme, which is built on a GPL platform has to be GPL as well (one of the main features of the GPL license). Mark Jaquith explained this really well... 
Jul
10
2010
It’s Called WordPress And Don’t You Forget It!!
Justin Tadlock brought to my attention a WordPress debate which is frustrating a lot of WordPress bloggers. Shortly before WordPress 3 was released a function was added to WordPress called capital_P_dangit() which changes 'Wordpress' to 'WordPress' i.e. replaces a lowercase p to uppercase P (this is known as CamelCasing). This was done to ensure that users correctly capitalise the W and P when referring to the WordPress brand name.
Many of you may be surprised that the addition of such a small function could cause a debate in the first place. There are 3 reasons why people are getting annoyed about this function:
- Normally all major changes are added to WordPress via the track ticket system. However this function was added to the core files without being debated by any developers.
- The function is breaking URL's. There's currently a ticket opened which states that an uploaded image called WordpressLogo_blue-m.png doesn't work because it was changed to WordpressLogo_blue-m.png by the function. This is clearly a major problem and needs to be addressed.
- To quote Justin....
It is common for most free and commercial themes (GPL or otherwise) to include a credit link in the footer back to the person or website which designed the template. The majority of bloggers are happy to keep this credit link as a way of thanking the designer for releasing their template for free. Or, in the case of commercial themes, for being happy to spread the word about the theme they love because of the quality of support they received from the company was high.
However you can usually remove the credit link if you wish by simply removing the HTML code from your footer.php template. I say usually because there are many rogue theme developers out there who make things a little more difficult by encrypting their sponsor links with Base 64 encoding.
This is a really nasty thing to do as the theme will not work if the code is simply removed from the template (usually an error or something will appear telling the user to put the credit link code back). I don't agree with this... 
Last week I spent a lot of time getting to know WordPress 3.0 and the new default theme Twenty Ten. Whilst working with WP 3.0 I noticed that a small problem which used to exist in WordPress has been addressed.
In previous versions of WordPress there was a small problem which occurred when you used a page for the home page of your site where the page slug would be added to the title. For example, if you created a page called Home and set it as your home page it would create a page called www.site.com/home/ even if you set it as the home page.
It would also add another home link to the the nav bar so you would have to then manually exclude it by editing your header.php template or using an exclude plugin.
This has been addressed in WordPress 3.0. When you set a page as the home page it does not get a page slug and is not added to the nav menu either (since it is already linked there... If you are a frequent reader of WP Mods then you will have seen screenshots of my WordPress test area in many articles, particularly in plugin related posts. I use my test WordPress installation every week and today I will be showing why you need to install another copy of WordPress for testing purposes.
Editing Your Theme
I always back my theme up on my computer though I usually upload the theme to my test area too. This allows me to edit the design and mess about with things without worrying about something being broken on the live site. It's then just a matter of copying the changed files from the test blog to the live blog (I usually just copy and paste if only one or two files have been edited). If you are just doing a simple edit like changing a link then you should just do it on the live site. Though if you are changing CSS styling or dimensions of something like your footer, header or widgets; then you should do so in...
There have been some amazing WordPress themes over the last few years. Unfortunately, some of these great themes have not been updated in years, therefore they are not compatible with the latest versions of WordPress (particularly themes released before WP 2.7).
Although trends change, some of these iconic themes have stood the test of time well. Which is why I was pleased to read that a few designers are keen on bringing classic themes back to life.
WordPress designer Leland Fiegel, who did a fantastic custom theme for me 5 months ago, outlined his plans on this in his article 'Resurrected Themes – Bringing Old WordPress Themes Back to Life'.
And Leland his not the only one who is keen on doing this. He notes that he got the idea himself from WordPress designers Remkus de Vries and Ian Stewart was keen on the idea too. Leland's plan is to choose an old GPL licensed theme and then an up to date framework like Thematic. He... 
Theme frameworks such as Thesis, Carrington and Frugal have grown in popularity within the last few years. I've used Thematic and Theme Hybrid themes for sites of mine in the past and I purchased Headway to help me build mini sites quicker last year too.
Like many WordPress users, it didn't concern me that the themes I used for my sites were child themes of the Thematic and Theme Hybrid frameworks. The themes were exactly what I was looking for so it didn't really matter. If the framework helped the designer create the themes then I'm all for it.
However frameworks such as Thesis and Headway are being marketed towards WordPress theme developers and WordPress novices. And I can fully understand why as both of these frameworks allow complete beginners to change many aspects of their design such as the background colour, anchor link colour, website width, tabbed menus and more.
The problem is, it's very difficult for newbies to customise their blog design beyond these basic modifications, which is why so many... 
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