THanks for your detailed response! I wasn't aware of the CF Commercial-to-GPL License, so I'm going to go read through that.
I used to agree with your statement: "Because most people are honorable individuals who believe in the integrity of the open source community and the GPL license." So I know where you're coming from.
After a lot of thought, summarized below, I'm starting to think that *some* developers who want to have it both ways. I'm speaking of developers whose work IS covered by GPL and whose product they're selling directly relies on WP to function and is therefore a "derivative" of WP.
Matt said: "our Bill of Rights would be the GPL because it protects our core freedoms."
There are devs who seem to want the benefits of declaring GPL but they don't want to give others the freedom in the "Bill of Rights" that has done so much to benefit them. I think they're the ones who are dishonorable (if it's fair to say that about anyone) and who are hurting the integrity of the community. WordPress has made their business possible and they are building on years of work by thousands of people. They're using software that *requires* them to allow others to freely redistribute derivations like theirs. They benefit from and agreed to this license.
Then they want to restrict its use and act like the code is solely theirs and not a derivative of WP and its GPL.
I'm hoping this isn't too personal, but this basically what is confusing me so I'll ask: as an example, I've worked with and totally respect Collis, but on CodeCanyon, they sell WP plugins that have to be GPL by definition. But you'd never know it if you were an end user. The license page says under Plugins: "For web content a regular license is suitable for use on a single domain or single subdomain or single directory." There's no mention of WP being different from this or GPL. If you were a typical buyer you'd have no thought other than that the plugin or theme was "single use". (Themes on Envato are split-GPL).
So I was confused, knowing Collis to be a stand-up guy. I went looking for info on the GPL cause I knew something had to be there. It took me an hour of digging to find this nugget at the bottom of another page: "(i) If the whole, or part, of the Work has been created using materials which are the subject of a GNU General Public License (GPL), your use of the Work (or part Work) is subject to the specific terms of the GPL in place of the foregoing conditions (to the extent the GPL applies)."
I'm truly not wanting to offend any of you authors of plugins/frameworks, but I don't get the attitude here. It's so different from the GPL. Speaking generally and not of Collis, that inconsistency is what is confusing and seems "dishonorable" and hurts the "integrity of the open source community and the GPL license."
I know that ThemeForest wouldn't sell WP plugins for a long time because they fully understood this. I was just surprised that when they did, this is how they did it. No wonder they tell plugin authors, don't worry about the GPL cause your plugin will sell like it would if it didn't have it. That's cause it's totally buried and then if someone did use a plugin on multiple sites or fork it or whatever, you could easily get labeled "dishonorable" and undermining the community. But I thought that's what the community is: people using GPL code and working together on it in multiple sites.
See why I'm totally confused? I just figure maybe I'm missing something and I can rely on the community to enlighten me:)
