WooCommerce vs Shopify: A battle for ecommerce platform dominance
Jonathan Wold
Shopify has a lot going for it. WooCommerce, though, is the better platform for ecommerce on the Open Web.
Jono Bacon notices that GPL license…
Brian Krogsgard
Jono Bacon notices that GPL license usage has dropped (more than half since 2010) and asks why. His theory revolves around the increased growth of open source in business, and a "nervousness" around the GPL in the commercial world.
Matt Mullenweg’s stand for the GPL against Wix
Brian Krogsgard
You've probably heard about as much as you want to hear regarding Wix and the GPL issues surrounding their mobile app release by now. However, I want to help sift through the noise. First, some links: Matt Mullenweg's open letter…
Leland Fiegel has a must-read roundup of GPL…
Brian Krogsgard
Leland Fiegel has a must-read roundup of GPL myths with easy to understand explanations. it's nice to see these points detailed by a WordPress theme shop owner, and anyone producing products with the GPL license should give this a read over. I've spent…
Easy Content Types for sale
Brian Krogsgard
Pippin Williamson is selling his Easy Content Types plugin, after five years of managing it under Pippin's Plugins. Easy Content Types spent two years on Code Canyon before he moved it to his personal site. It still sells pretty well,…
The Creative Commons license is now compatible with the GPL
Brian Krogsgard
The Creative Commons license and the GPL have not always played too nicely together, as much to do with semantics as anything else. Now they do, but there are some things to consider, if you are trying to bundle a…
Discouraging public redistribution of commercial themes and plugins
Brian Krogsgard
Richard Best did a poll asking people a series of questions regarding redistribution of commercial themes and plugins. Since he did the work, I'd request you go to his site for the full poll results, but this paragraph alone is…
WordPress plugin repo forking policy clarified
Brian Krogsgard
Mike Epstein clarified a policy for the WordPress.org plugin repo this morning, based on some recent issues that cropped up (likely the Elegant Themes / LeadPages thing yesterday). Basically, GPL-compatible unchanged copies are not allowed as part of an "above and…
Brewing fuss over a fork of an Elegant Themes popup plugin
Brian Krogsgard
Folks are making a bit of a fuss about a commercial plugin -- Bloom, a lead generation and popup plugin -- getting forked and released for free. It all started with an Elegant Themes tweet: Looks like @LeadPages took our plugin, replaced…
A practical guide to the GPL
Brian Krogsgard
Richard Best has invested a lot to understanding the GPL, inside and out. He now has an ebook to help guide others on the GPL. Now, in a single place, you can find answers to all manner of issues relating…
Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress
Brian Krogsgard
Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg have hardly communicated with one another in the last five years, but they are ideological enemies. They have very strong personalities and unshakable beliefs on business and software. This is a story of their dispute, their idealism, and the implications it will have on the WordPress project.
Pearson versus Mullenweg, a history
Brian Krogsgard
This is a preview of the first part of my upcoming article on Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress. Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg have hardly communicated with one another in the last five years, but they are ideological enemies. They are…
Automattic to acquire WP Job Manager from Mike Jolley
Brian Krogsgard
Mike Jolley has agreed to terms to sell WP Job Manager to Automattic. Mike is already joining Automattic after the WooThemes acquisition -- under his role as WooCommerce lead developer -- and the sale of WP Job Manager is in part due to Automattic's rules for employee side projects.
Envato’s role in the “big theme” market
Brian Krogsgard
In a provocative article on WP Tavern titled "Envato Continues to Rake in the Cash from WordPress Themes Packaged as Complete Website Solutions", Sarah Gooding slams Envato for their role in what I'll call the "big theme" market. Envato theme authors…
Putting commercial plugin code on Github is not a change in “business model”
Brian Krogsgard
There has been a lot of talk lately around putting commercial plugin code on public Github repos. #thankspippin. Seriously, thanks. This is a good conversation to have. GravityView is the latest plugin to make this change. I'm pleased to see…
Licensing matters
Brian Krogsgard
There's a popular WordPress vulnerability scanner called WPScan. To validate its popularity: it has over 1,800 commits, 750 stars, and 165 forks on Github. The scanner is used by a lot of security folks, as well as other service and…
