WooThemes Goes GPL, More Will Follow
Premium themes marketplace WooThemes are changing things, going GPL on all themes, and launches a theme club, along with the WooCamp blog. There’s a bunch of membership options for the themes club, and the whole site got a makeover. More will follow. It is hip to be GPL these days.
So yet another premium themes seller goes GPL. I think that’s good, but as Alex King pointed out (and then at least somewhat rephrased), the pure fact that themes are GPL’d means that anyone can do anything with them. Including buying them and uploading them to wordpress.org, or cut-and-paste whatever they might like from them. Then again, my guess is that a lawyer looking into the WordPress license in the first place, would say that all themes are GPL, no matter what the theme author say and think. That’s my take on GPL anyway, and that’s why I’ll offer my upcoming theme for free.
Support, updates, and freebies is the way to go if you want to make money selling multiple access to themes.
That’s what I think, what say you?
Thord Daniel Hedengren is a designer, writer, and blogger, and also the former editor of The Blog Herald. He used to be a hotshot in the gaming industry in Sweden, but sold everything and went International. Most recently he wrote a book called Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog, and does loads of kickass design.