somefoolwitha.com

“I am really sorry about this and I do not want to be the guy that does this type of post at all but here is the thing. This site has copyright info and yet the powered by Word Press credit has been removed. Matt & Co never make a fuss, and no one is going to sue a home site blogger, but if people want to be made welcome,
then they should play by the rules.”
Um… where are you finding these “rules?”
My understanding is that WordPress is GPLed software. There is nothing in the GNU GPL that would require the name of the project (in this case, WordPress) to appear in the program’s output (in this case, web pages). Nor is it legal to add such a requirement, as the GPL explicitly prohibits imposing additional restrictions on users:
“6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.”
Therefore, if the GPL is being followed, it is perfectly legal to remove links to the WordPress site from (GPLed) page templates provided with the software. I think that users should be *encouraged* to provide these links, both as a matter of courtesy to the developers as well as to promote WordPress, but any hard requirement to do so would breach the GPL.
I’ve quickly scanned through the documentation here and haven’t found anything yet that requires people to provide a “Powered by WordPress” button on their pages, or anything like that. Perhaps you’re thinking of Moveable Type, which (I believe) DOES require something like that?
Please provide links to the relevant information if I’m off-base here.

Yes, it appears that they do, even for the paid versions of the software. Here’s a link to the current MT license, which is used for all “personal” versions (I can’t locate a copy of the terms for the “commercial” license):
http://www.movabletype.org/license.shtml
“A Little Credit. You must maintain, on every site generated by the Software, an operable link to http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/, with the link text “Powered by Movable Typeâ€?, as specified by Six Apart, unless otherwise stated in the terms included with your copy of the Software.”
Why do they need “A Little Credit”, when they’re also charging up to $149.95? Who knows? Other things you might wonder about with this license:
http://philringnalda.com/blog/2004/05/licensing_matters.php
http://popone.innocence.com/archives/2004/05/14/licensing.php
Give me the GPL any day over this crap!

“I think you may be a little off base in your understanding of the full terms of the licence but this is not about the legal issue.”
This is nonsensical. “The full terms of the license” are the terms of the license as it is written, which in the case of WordPress is the GPL. There are NO additional licenses, and you haven’t provided any link to support your claim that some other terms are intended to apply to the use of WordPress. Licenses are ONLY about “legal issues”.
If the developers wanted to impose a requirement that bloggers MUST provide links or references to WordPress on their sites, they would have included those requirements in their license terms, just as 6Apart did for MT.
As for the rest of what you’ve written, I mostly agree with the sentiments behind it. I’ve already stated that it’s fine to ENCOURAGE bloggers to provide links to WordPress (and other projects*), but it is NOT A REQUIREMENT, and CANNOT be a requirement without changing the license for WP from the GPL to something else. It’s inappropriate to spread false information about what a WordPress installation requires, legally speaking. You’ve already told at least one user of WP that they could be sued (presumably successfully) by the developers unless they link to the WP website, and this is both untrue and counterproductive. Trying to coerce others into doing what you consider to be ethical by misrepresenting their obligations is *in itself* highly unethical, imo.
*Another thing to keep in mind with regard to mandatory “credit” links is that the typical WordPress ‘blog depends on numerous Free Software components, whose underlying projects also depend on recognition and contribution from users. This includes things like the Linux kernel, the GNU system libraries (glibc) and compilers (GCC), PHP, Apache, MySQL, etc. Do you provide links to all of these projects on your WordPress ‘blog, and if not, why do you think WordPress is uniquely deserving of recognition?