Theme Viewer Alternative at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

The theme version of the plugin directory is open at WordPress.org. The only catch is the theme needs to be exclusively GPL Compatible. Why is that an issue? When you have original work licensed under GPL, you no longer have creative control over how it can be used, simply put, anyone can download your work, add their links (own or paid) or malware code and distributed it without your consent. Do you really want that to happen? Isn’t that the reason why we shut the Theme Viewer in the first place?

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  1. 1. archGFX | Yet Another Theme Repository | July 18, 2008 #

    [...] sandbox themes will work with the new system.  Bus Full of Hippies will naturally be excluded, due to its GPL-incompatability. This entry was written by adam, posted on 18 Jul 2008 at 10:58, filed under Asides, design, [...]

  1. 2. that girl again | July 19, 2008 #

    Yes: if you care about what happens to your creative work after it’s released — whether that’s being credited for it, keeping redistribution rights or not having it financially exploited by others — GPL is not an appropriate licence for you. I’m a couple of years past caring so I’m OK with releasing under GPL, but that’s based on a) an understanding of what that entails and b) my complete lack of faith in the WP community’s ability to respect any other licence. (Basically, people who want to rip you off are going to do so regardless of your terms of use, and decent people don’t need to be ordered not to.)

    It worries me that Automattic are putting pressure on people to release under GPL without fully understanding the implications of doing so. I know that ultimately it’s the designer’s responsibility to check that they are releasing their work under an appropriate licence, but many don’t realise the importance of the issue until it bites them. I wish they would post a plain English outline of what GPL-compatibility entails, rather than simply directing people to a list of licences with no actual information; but of course being upfront with designers about what they were signing up to might deter them. Or, at least it would if they could be bothered to read it. In practice, people are going to upload linkware and non-commercial stuff and claim it’s GPL, probably in genuine ignorance that it isn’t, and then get angry when people rip their links off and replace them with spam.

  1. 3. hso | July 19, 2008 #

    @ That Girl Again

    I will not be surprised if thousands of folks jump into this mess with their themes, obviously they are not aware of or care enough about the possible issues with using GPL. One way to overcome this would be to offer a no frills, striped down version with not advanced features and ask the folks to in turn download the advanced features (CC licensed) version from your site.

  1. 4. Me | July 24, 2008 #

    Seems pretty good!

  1. 5. webstigma | July 25, 2008 #

    what is GPL guy. i am new to this and i wanted to know what GPL is. i also wanted to know if you can have your own custom design added to wordpress

  1. 6. hso | July 29, 2008 #

    @ Webstigma

    Check GNU GPL license and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.

  1. 7. Copyright Infringement by British Prime Minister’s Web Designer » Headsetoptions.org | August 20, 2008 #

    [...] purpose. The old theme viewer was plagued with this issue that eventually led to creation of a new admin monitored repository. With the growing popularity of WordPress, this issue left unaddressed will only lead to more such [...]

  1. 8. WordPress 2.7 - Afterthoughts » WP Pro - Web Design, Development & Pro WordPress Hosting for Serious Bloggers | May 14, 2009 #

    [...] is this a key observation? Since the new theme repository was modeled after the plugins directory, how far are we from a feature that will allow users to [...]

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