When Your Blog Gets Splogged, It’s More Than GPL.. Right?

Comments

1. Lincoln Mullen says:

   7/17/2010 at 9:49 am

   That’s a good point about RSS feeds being like an API.
2. Ray Gulick (2 comments.) says:

   7/17/2010 at 11:07 am

   Right! If you can’t abide by the terms of the license, you should find another platform whose terms of use suit your purposes.

   People who say Thesis can exist without WordPress miss the point. The fact is, it IS built on WordPress. If Thesis developers don’t like the terms of use that come with WordPress, they have the freedom to pull it from the WordPress market and build it for use on another platform; perhaps their own platform over which they will have complete control.

   To disregard the terms because they restrict your “freedom” is childish, irresponsible, and almost certainly illegal.
   • Teli (4 comments.) says:

     7/18/2010 at 7:17 pm

     To disregard the terms because they restrict your “freedom” is childish, irresponsible, and almost certainly illegal.

     To be clear, I’m not disagreeing that disregarding the terms of a software license or other contract is childish and irresponsible, however, you should be careful with the use of the world “illegal” since Chris’s transgression would be a violation of a software license, which (in most cases) is not a criminal offense.

     NB: IANAL
     • Ray Gulick (2 comments.) says:

       7/18/2010 at 7:40 pm

       I believe (though I’m not a lawyer) that “illegal” means “prohibited by law” and that it does not necessarily mean “criminal.” For instance, you can make an illegal left turn, but that does not make you a criminal nor is it referred to as a “criminal act.” It certainly can earn you a fine or other legal sanctions, however. Hopefully, there will be legal action and the legality/illegality of Chris Pearson’s actions will be settled.
3. Teli (4 comments.) says:

   7/18/2010 at 7:02 pm

   I’m unbiased as well and am not going to take sides on the issue, but I will say that Copyright violations and Software License violations are like comparing apples to oranges. However, if you’re going to lump Software License violation into Copyright infringement, then you would also need to take into consideration Fair Use (assuming we’re talking U.S. law here). This entire situation is a slippery slope.
   • Michael Lockyear (2 comments.) says:

     7/22/2010 at 2:07 am

     Software licenses are linked to copyright law (and therefore violations)….According to GNU site, ““Fair use” is use that is allowed without any special permission. Since you don’t need the developers’ permission for such use, you can do it regardless of what the developers said about it—in the license or elsewhere, whether that license be the GNU GPL or any other free software license.”
4. Andrew @ Blogging Guide (86 comments.) says:

   7/19/2010 at 8:17 am

   Good point here. I really think hat licenses exist so there would be order, if it is then not followed then what follows is confusion.