Thesis has officially adopted a split GPL license, putting an end to the explosive debate between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and Thesis developer Chris Pearson which launched a community-wide discussion on the GPL and WordPress themes. To clarify the split GPL license, Chris Pearson adds, “the PHP is GPLv2 and the CSS, JS, and images are proprietary.” Specifically, this means that Thesis no longer violates the GPL of WordPress and the several plugins that Thesis was based on. Matt Mullenweg was thrilled to hear the news, replying with, “Now, back to work. This has taken a lot of my time over the past few days and was going to consume more if it went forward.” It is unknown if this will have any affect on Mr. Pearson’s business. While the split GPL license now allows the core of Thesis be redistributed by a third-party either free or for a fee, the […]
[Continue Reading...]
‘Web Ethics’ Category
The Federal Trade Commission is planning to crack down on bloggers who review or promote products while earning freebies or payments, the Associated Press reported Sunday. “New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers–as well as the companies that compensate them–for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest,” the article explained. via Report: FTC to go after blogger freebies | Politics and Law – CNET News. While I am not a big fan of government scrutiny and general “big brother” mentality, I do believe that this will add to the believability and authenticity of the blogging medium. We at Weblog Tools Collection try very hard to keep commercial interests completely out of the content that we generate and only rely on what we consider to be ethical ads to make ends meet. We also follow […]
[Continue Reading...]99 designs is an interesting site. It fills a niche that I have carefully treaded in the past and have received negative feedback for (rightfully so). 99 Designs allows you to crowdsource your design needs. If an organization or an individual seeks a new design, they hold a “contest” of sorts using the tools built into 99 Designs and offer up some money for their project. Designers are then allowed to post entries for these and the contest holder is allowed to pick and choose the best design(s) and distribute the money based on the winning design. In the past designers have turned up their nose on design contests for a variety of reasons, most of which I agree with. However, the surprising thing about 99 Designs is the popularity of the site and the sheer number of designs that have been submitted for existing contest. Some of the work […]
[Continue Reading...]We will not promote sponsored themes on WeblogToolsCollection any more. There are a bunch of reasons for this decision much of which has been rehashed in the past. Things have gone downhill since then. I cannot hope to please everyone and I do not apologize or repent for this decision. I believe that this is in the best interest of the community and this is the best way I can serve my readers. I strongly urge sponsored theme authors to reconsider their means and I laud those who choose to offer their themes to the community without sponsored links.
[Continue Reading...]A few days ago, Project Honey Pot introduced a new service, http:BL, “a system that allows website administrators to take advantage of the data generated by Project Honey Pot in order to keep suspicious and malicious web robots off their sites”. A honeypot is a trap set to detect email havesters and spam robots : this should ring a bell to most bloggers, I guess. The beauty of Project Honey Pot is that anyone can contribute : just register an account, download the script and put it somewhere on your blog. It’s been more effective than I would have thought and wished : the day I had my first honeypot installed, it detected a new and before unseen comment spammer. Contributing to this project is an easy way of making the web a cleaner place, and it will also benefit to another WordPress related spam-fighting project : the almighty Bad […]
[Continue Reading...]Thanks to posts here on WLTC and around the blogosphere, the topic of “sponsored themes” is at the top of everyone’s minds. I thought this would be a good time to share my thoughts on the ramifications of sponsored themes, and what it means for our community. For those who are new to the topic, in the past yew years a market has developed around advertisers that pay money to websites to have plain-text links back to their properties so they can rank better in search engines like Google for the text in those links. At some point the people gaming Google realized instead of buying links from dozens of individual sites, they could pay theme authors to bundle their links with their download and get hundreds or thousands of sites with their link for a small fraction of the cost. This is politely referred to as “theme sponsorship.” Sometimes […]
[Continue Reading...]AboutUs.org is a new wiki on the block that has information for every domain in the world. But is the concept ethical? Join in the discussion.
[Continue Reading...]Plagiarism Today Very relevant to blogs and bloggers and definitely on my reading list now. Thanks Micro Persuasion
[Continue Reading...]Blog Micropayments: IndieKarma Each time you visit a website or blog on the indieKarma network, your account is seamlessly debited just one cent. It’s the smallest of micro-payments, directly supporting the blog or website you’re enjoying. Interesting concept, but will the average blogger/blogsurfer really benefit from this or will most of the money end up with the company. Same company as Pixelpass
[Continue Reading...]About the Author
- James
James began using WordPress in 2004. Being new to WordPress (and blogging in general), he quickly found the WordPress Support Forums and basically never left. James currently resides in sunny Southern California, where he enjoys bringing happiness to millions of WordPress.com users.
Web: http://macmanx.com
Categories
- bbpress
- Best of WordPress
- Blog Templates Blog Skins Blog Themes
- Blogging
- Blogging Essays
- Blogging News
- brainstorming
- buddypress
- Business of Blogging
- CMS
- Code
- Cold Fusion
- Community Interviews
- Cool Scripts
- General
- HOW-TO
- LinkyLoo
- Movable Type Plugins
- Photolog Script
- Podcasting
- QuickLinking
- Spam
- SXSW
- TLA
- Tutorials
- User Reviews
- Web Design
- Web Ethics
- Weblog Add-Ons
- Weblog tools blog tools blogging tools
- Weekly Plugin Review
- WLTC Community
- wordcamp
- WordPress
- WordPress Discussions
- WordPress FAQs
- Wordpress for Beginners
- WordPress Hack
- WordPress News
- WordPress Plugin Competition
- WordPress Plugins
- WordPress Polls
- WordPress Security
- WordPress Templates WordPress Skins WordPress Themes
- WordPress Tips
- WordPress Tools
- WordPress Troubleshooting
- WordPress Weekly
- WordPress Widgets
- WordPress WishList
- XHTML Tips
Obviously Powered by WordPress. © 2003-2013
