(More than) 43 Non-GPL Themes in CVS

Thanks for compiling this list.

I'd appreciate if somebody could double check it, though.

E.g, the internet_services theme has a statement "These are free XHTML / CSS website templates available to use without any limitations. " on its homepage. "without any limitations" seems to include "re-license under GPL" to me.

Also, drupal.org's projects are limited to material hosted on drupal.org.

Also, I believe in the forum somewhere was a specific comment from them about having permission to use the various Internet_themename and GPL it. I haven't had time to search for the original reference though.

No idea if this is the right place, but Drupal.org theme is the wrong place. I'll ping Larry about this.

Pong.

I will follow up with the individual themes listed and see which if any need to be purged. If any do, I will email the infra list with details.

The non-GPL themes I used to maintain have been discontinued, at least to respect this issue and Dries' decision, despite several issues being submitted for them for upgrade to Drupal 5 and 6, etc.

Having Zen be removed from CVS would be a problem, since this has the basic starter theme documented and recommended for quite some time. You say, "zen", but I'm under the impression this is actually only the "Zen classic" subtheme, not Zen itself ?

Can't look at this right this sec. But… wha? Deliciously Blue isnt' GPL?!? I'll have to investigate.

Fortunately, it IS just in a sub-theme. And isn't part of the Zen base theme anymore.

http://www.jdavidmacor.com/templates/ says CC on the bottom.

Michelle

Gurpartap: Which themes have you discontinued, so that we know we can just remove them from CVS? Having a list makes my life easier. :-)

Removed them from CVS already back in 2007 :)

List of GPL compatible licenses:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

In theory, themes using those licenses should be OK as well, no?

Robin

Robin: No, anything in CVS must be GPLv2+, the same as Drupal itself. Period. Stuff under an inward-compatible license is legal (eg, BSD), but it must come out of CVS as GPLv2+.

killes: So none of the projects listed in the OP are still in CVS? That would make my life easier, but I know for a fact Zen is still there... :-)

http://drupal.org/project/zen is GPL, read license.txt, however, that file doesn't seems to be in CVS...

@alexanderpas - All projects in drupal.org's repository automatically get that license file. The issue here is that one of Zen's subthemes, Zen classic, is based on deliciously blue, which is CC and not GPL.

Michelle

I did a test and at least http://drupal.org/project/nonzero is still there.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if a theme is already released under an inward-compatible license, wouldn't it be just a required formality to add a GPL license with the author's consent? The authors aren't giving anything up, and unless I'm misunderstanding the way GPL works, they can still release it under the other license on their own site?

It basically depends on the original license. For instance, a CC BY NC SA 3.0 license is not compatible with the GPL, because the GPL does not include such a restriction as the "NC" clause. I've asked the author of Deliciously blue if he'd be willing to relicense his design under the GPL so we can republish Zen classic as a derived work.

The author's consent is already assumed by virtue of their committing something to CVS. The difficulty with that sort of dual-licensing is if someone submits a patch for the Drupal version then that patch can NOT go back to the non-GPL version, thus resulting in a fork. (That's yet another reason we don't allow 3rd party libraries in CVS, even if the licensing would allow it inbound.)

Regrettably, not in this case: the original template was by one non-Drupalist, and John adapted his work as a Zen subtheme. But unless he had a specific authorization from the original designer of Deliciously Blue (http://drupal.org/node/143795#comment-1083246 seems to imply he was not aware of this problem), his commit to CVS did not bind that designer.

I hope the original author will agree, though: I really like this theme.

Actually the Delicious Blue bit was already in CVS when I started working on Zen. I'll have to check with Jeff Robbins about this. There was someone else who did the porting, though… zirafa, maybe?

I think Fasheed (zirafa) might have worked on adding deliciously blue when we were at CivicSpace. If you have trouble contacting him, I can help.

I added http://drupal.org/project/deliciously_blue back then. But the files are deleted from the cvs now.

Hello,

Yes I ported Deliciously Blue for the Zen theme (there was a non-Zen version which I did not work on). I believe I grabbed the theme from OSWD. At the time I think I assumed it was ok to port because it was "open source", but looking at the site now it doesn't specify the exact licensing. However, the original author of the theme can be contacted here.

Actually, I already contacted the author (J David Macor) on his personal blog, but received no answer.

Digging further, there is actually another problem: he states that his WP template is itself based on Glossy Blue, the licensing terms of which are not only not GPL, but not compatible with it. See http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/wp-themes/glossyblue/ and the matching Drupal theme http://drupal.org/project/glossyblue

Here are the terms from the original GlossyBlue

By downloading and using this theme, you agree to the following terms:

1. You may NOT resell this theme
2. A link back to N.Design Studio must be retained in the footer (either modified or unmodified)
3. You may use this theme for personal or commercial projects
4. You may modify, translate or distribute

Item 1 and 2 are not compatible with the GPL. This applies directly to the GlossyBlue theme, and probably to DeliciouslyBlue as an avowed derived work.

And by extension therefrom, Zen Classic?

The thing is that this nominative GlossyBlue -> DeliciouslyBlue -> Zen Classic line of inheritance is not particularly visible in the theme's appearance. Compare the screenshots:

GlossyBlue

The Zen Classic Theme

Of course, there may be similarities in the internal code structure that survived the WP->Drupal port, but the appearance seems completely different.

My point is: Can Zen Classic be rewritten from scratch in such a way that it does not significantly change its appearance, but loses all internal relations with its grandfather GlossyBlue?

I am not at all sure how glossyblue and deliciously blue are connected / derivates??? Zen classic has nothing to do with glossy blue, it is based on deliciously blue: http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/2634

I may not have been clear enough: I'm not claiming myself any specific resemblance, but Deliciously Blue is originally a WP template created by J David Macor based on the Glossy Blue template by N Design, as explained on the author page here http://www.jdavidmacor.com/2007/05/10/wordpress-theme-deliciously-blue/

Quoting J David Macor him about Deliciously Blue:

I chose to use the theme framework from the Glossy Blue theme which was made by N. Design Studio. It is incredibly extensible and has ton’s of great built in usability.

Actually, the parentage is much simpler…

I have finally done it! For a long time now, I have been meaning to take my “Deliciously Blue” XHTML template and convert it into a Wordpress theme.

Zen Classic was made from the XHTML template before it became a WordPress theme. So "Glossy Blue" and the XHTML Template are the parents of the WordPress theme version of Deliciously Blue, not of Zen.

The OSWD-hosted XHTML template begat Zen directly.

Good to know. Although it doesnt change the problem much, it is an improvement because it takes the specific N Design license out of the derivation.

The XHTML Template is clearly licensed under CC NC BY SA (US) 3.0, as per http://www.jdavidmacor.com/templates/

This license is still not compatible with the GPL, though, especially because of the NC clause.

Like a lot of designers, the author didn't think about licensing until well after the fact. The CC license stated on http://www.jdavidmacor.com/templates/ was definitely put there well after the design was originally released.

Deliciously Blue was completed on Jan 24, 2006. Zen started using it in August 2006 (http://drupal.org/node/81217#comment-441797). A blog post in March 2006, http://www.jdavidmacor.com/2006/03/24/pre-release-of-even-tastier-blue/ , shows the "terms" under which the "Deliciously Blue" XTHML template was originally downloaded.

…feel free to download the template and use it for whatever you want. As usual, there is no need to link back to my site.

and, in the comments:

You are free to copy anything I do design wise on this site! So go ahead and use it!

The CC license and its "with attribution" and "non-commercial" clauses were added later, changing the terms after Zen started using it.

Unfortunately, the terms of "Deliciously Blue" when Zen started using it are very sparse.

The download on jdavidmacor.com is identical to the one on OSWD. And neither download file contains any licensing information or any terms. The OSWD website says all designs are "free to download", but doesn't specify usage/re-distribution terms because those are supposed to be specified per-download and this one doesn't specify anything. And, at the time, jdavidmacor.com didn't have any terms other than what I just stated above.

BTW, this post isn't meant to justify anything. I'm just writing down the facts about the licensing that I've discovered. I have no clue as to whether the sparse information above about its pre-CC "terms" are good/clear enough to be considered GPL-compatible. A clear "yes, go ahead and GPL it" message from the author would be simplest.

FWIW, the first status of the templates page recorded in the Archive is dated 2006/10/17: http://web.archive.org/web/20061017120922/http://www.jdavidmacor.com/tem...

It already contains Deliciously Blue, and no license specification. The CC clause appears 2007/04/09 and 2007/05/09: the IA happens to have crawls of that page on these two days, the first one without a license clause, the second one with the CC BY NC SA 3.0 USA clause. The page without the CC clause mentions [...]The site features free templates[...] at the bottom right of the page, wording which remains present to this day, now on top of the page.

Now if only the author would answer... maybe if more people ask him, he'll become aware of the situation ?

From the sound of it, Deliciously Blue and its Drupal derivatives could be argued as legit based on the old license terms. I'd feel much much more comfortable with clear word from the author, though, so let's keep poking him. I can follow-up myself using my overly-verbose title on the email if you think that's more likely to get a response. :-)

whoa! don't assume free means free as in libre (free speech) as most of the time it means free as in gratis (free beer)

Corrected category.

Vitzo: http://drupal.org/node/387368: Do not download from Drupal Theme Projects since this archive contains only dummy files due to licensing issues. Commercial and personal use and/or modification are allowed as long as the links remain unmodified. In other words; removal or modification of the links is not allowed.. I am removing Vitso from http://d-theme.com/ due to that statement. Seems like someone just using the post on drupal.org to advertise a not completely open theme.

I've unpublished the vitzo theme.

@crell: Did you receive any answer from him since then ? As a bundled Zen subtheme, Zen Classic is rather more significant than some others, considering the importance of Zen.

Hm. I never followed up, as no one responded when I asked if I should. :-)

A question about dual licenses. What happens when an author says you can use a work under GPL or BSD licenses, it is "your choice"? What happens when an author supplies a work under the GPL and includes an offer to supply a commercial version or a BSD style license at a price? From what you say, the author can offer the alternatives from their own site. Can they make that offer on the project page? From comments in the code? Do they have to include both licenses in the drupal.org download or only the GPL?

You mention that updates in CVS have to be GPL. If the author makes the change in CVS, is there any restriction on the author using that change in any version they license outside? Would they have to make the changes in their version then donate the changes to the drupal.org CVS version to retain the right to offer an alternative license? I am thinking of a small developer maintaining one copy in the drupal.org CVS instead of having a parallel version in another system.

Since all Drupal modules are derivative works of Drupal and therefore must be under the GPL anyway, the question doesn't apply. :-) For other general questions, please use the Legal group on g.d.o.

I’ve removed the Zen Classic sub-theme from all three of the -dev release for Zen: 5.x-1.x-dev, 6.x-1.x-dev, and 6.x-2.x-dev, which corresponds to all the branches in CVS: DRUPAL-5, DRUPAL-6--1, and HEAD. #426750: Remove Zen Classic sub theme

Are there any other themes that need to be removed?