BuddyPress.org

here is the best place for you to choose your license: http://creativecommons.org/choose/

i didn’t want to insult you at first, but yeah, stop being lazy… ROFL…

GPL has nothing to do with code being free (as in beer). Anyone can take code published under the GPL (WordPress for example) and start charging for it as long as all necessary conditions are met.

The whole point of the GPL is that the code will always be available, even if the developer has given up on it. A more restrictive license might mean that people will not improve on what you have worked on and that your code might just go dormant.

If someone takes your code, improves it a bit and then sells it, the improved code will still have to be GPL. This means that you could then take all the changes made and incorporate it back into your plugin. You wouldn’t even have to buy the improved plugin, just get the code from somewhere. Or just reproduce any new features.

You will have to license your work under some version of the GPL that at minimum offers the freedoms that the WP GPL offers.

What others have said above is basically correct. The GPL does not say anything about free as in cost. It is about freedoms of the end user. In fact, the GPL does not discourage developers or theme designers from making money off of their work or someone else’s work.

However, the GPL is very specific in how this is to be done: either by charging a distribution fee, a support fee, or both. So, in effect, you are not charging for the code itself. The vast majority of Premium plugin shops simply charge a distribution and support fee. If their plugins are not GPLed, then something is wrong.

Here are two great links from the GNU website that explain this very clearly:

Selling Free Software

The Free Software Definition

By the way, IMO there should not be a double standard in the WordPress community. Premium theme designers abound. Premium plugin developers should also be afforded the same respect and opportunity. The crucial point is that their work, like premium themes, must remain licensed under the GPL.

Of course, as Matt Mullenweg has stated on numerous occasions when discussing the issue of premium themes, although the PHP must be GPLed, the CSS and JS of the theme can be copyrighted. The same holds true with plugins. But, in my opinion, doing so is just too picky. I prefer to GPL everything–the PHP, CSS, JS, etc.

Now, you could choose to license your work under the AGPL, which is considered to offer more freedoms to the community. The basic difference from the GPL is that any changes made to your plugin, even if for private use, must be returned back to the community. Under GPLv1 through GPLv3, it is acceptable for any code changes to a plugin to remain private if the plugin is never distributed.

One final thought. I’ve stated this before in other places. Many people in the WordPress community seem to be moving beyond the spirit of the GPL, to a more utopian, share and share alike vision. There’s nothing wrong with that if it happens. But the GPL has never been about free as in cost.

You’re welcome.

By the way, here is a succinct explanation of what the GNU AGPL is all about:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#UnreleasedMods

As you can see, there may be a few circumstances where modified code may not be required to be released back into the community under AGPL. But those exceptions would basically mean that the plugin is not being used on a live site, perhaps only on a localhost environment.

Lots of different opinions about this, but lets face it, will wordpress sue you if you don’t use GPL license on your plugin/theme? Anyway, I haven’t found any legal evidence that your forced to use GPL on your plugin/theme, just speculations and opinions.

Vladimir Prelovac gave solutions of this problem on his blog a while back.

The solution exists and is technical in nature. For plugins you can develop your whole code as a library under your own licensing model. Then you would have the wordpress plugin which will call functions from your library. The plugin itself becomes GPL but the library not and you are free to slap any kind of license and restriction to it.

For themes it is a bit of a different story. Having read the GPL FAQ carefully this is my interpretation. First solution: You do not need to call any WordPress functions in your theme, but you can connect to the database directly and get the information you need. This method is possible but not elegant at all.

Second solution is to have your theme in external php files and one WordPress index.php. This file will use WordPress functions and only include() your files as neccessary. Again index.php would fall under GPL, all other files won’t.

@Jeff

I completly agree it is important to give back to the community – please don’t miss the second part of my post about doing the nice thing and think our company is out be evil

I was just saying I can totally see how a small company would try and hide all their code and try to get something back per plugin but as we realised early on the freemium model is the only way to be successful within the WP community long term.