GPL and the Repository

All plugins hosted in the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ repository must be compatible with GPLv2 or later. That means all code that is on our servers, from images to CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. to JS to the PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. code, has to meet that requirement. This is an extra requirement than just the standard one of derivative code, but we strongly feel that proprietary content has no need to be in our repository. If your code needs to be split licensed, or you have to included proprietary code for any reason, we can’t host you on .org, but that has no bearing on how neat and cool your code might be.

For a list of various licenses, and their compatibility with GPLv2 please read this: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html – We know not all of you are lawyers, and thankfully that list makes it easy to check what licenses do and don’t mesh. If something doesn’t have a license, ask the author please, and don’t assume.

The following code bases are popular (which is to say we see submissions with them pretty regularly), but at the time of this post, are not licensed GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.-compatible. None of this means you can’t or shouldn’t use this code on your sites or plugins, just that we can’t host it here if you do.

If there are plugins you find using these (or any non-GPL-Compatible) code bases in their pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, please email plugins AT wordpress.org and we’ll get in touch with the developer. If you’re the author of one of those code bases, please consider re-releasing your code under a GPLv2 Compatible license! We’d love to be able to host your work here.

#gpl, #licensing