Re: Fuzzy machine learning framework v1.2

["Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>]

Le Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:30:13 +0200, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> a  
écrit:
> Well, I chased this round and I have to say I'm surprised.
>
> WordPress claim (eg [1]) that the fact that themes (the PHP part) are
> executed in the same way as WordPress's own themes and call up the same
> Wordpress libraries makes them derivatives and hence subject to
> the GPL.
>
> The Software Freedom Law Center[2] says, quoted in [3],
>
>    The PHP elements, taken together, are clearly derivative of WordPress
>    code. The template is loaded via the include() function. Its contents
>    are combined with the WordPress code in memory to be processed by PHP
>    along with (and completely indistinguishable from) the rest of
>    WordPress. The PHP code consists largely of calls to WordPress
>    functions and sparse, minimal logic to control which WordPress
>    functions are accessed and how many times they will be called. They
>    are derivative of WordPress because every part of them is determined
>    by the content of the WordPress functions they call. As works of
>    authorship, they are designed only to be combined with WordPress into
>    a larger work.
>
> This strikes me as extremely contentious, and at first I wasn't willing
> to believe it.
>
> However, further research shows that a WordPress theme is an example of
> plug-in use as discussed in the GPL FAQ [4]:
>
>    If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function
>    calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a
>    single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the
>    main program and the plug-ins. This means the plug-ins must be
>    released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and
>    that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are
>    distributed.
>
> I must say that this statement is a lot clearer than the Software
> Freedom Law Center's. You might well be able to test its applicability
> in a court, since it's not part of the License, isn't even called up
> by it, and is admittedly only a statement of the FSF's belief.
>
> [1] http://goo.gl/c0tWG
> [2] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
> [3] http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/
> [4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins

Thanks for all of the details. So my mind was about OK, it was indeed due  
to PHP (theme author were still graphic designers, not programmers, and by  
the way, this could lead to another questions, but there are so many, I  
won't go on with all).

Side note: my apologizes for the numerous grammar mistakes in the post  
your replied to (I only noticed when it was too late, after message  
already sent).

-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University