Question about licensing of plug-ins

Although folks are encouraged to license plugins as GPL or GPL compatible (see the blurb here), my understanding is that if you wrote it, you can license it however you wish.

I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

You’re allowed to sell GPL’d code. The unresolved question (last I heard) is whether or not plugins for WordPress must be GPL licensed.

Some say yes, some say no, some say it depends on the level of integration.

WP cannot dictate the licence status of a plugin. They issued their work under GPL and so it is only the terms of GPL itself that can define what a plugin’s licence should be. And even GPL cannot enforce it. If a plug-in is not GPL and someone thinks it should be, only WP can pursuse it because they are the copyright holders of WP. No-one else can.

But let’s look at WP templates. Templates are really just plugins by another name in a different WP folder. There are free templates and there are templates that cost money.

Logic says there can be free plugins and plugins that cost money. And it should be up to the individual author to decide which route they want to go.