Comments on: WordPress Themes by Category

By: Swiss

Swiss — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 05:03:49 +0000

Yeah ! I’m with Paul too on this one .

By: andol

andol — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:59:41 +0000

wonderful~i like it

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:17:46 +0000

I agree with these Sponsored comments. I am new to wordpress, and not having a good amount of quality themes has discouraged me, albeit slightly. Given that I don’t exactly know much about creating these (yet), I would be someone that really benefits from quality themes offered by non sponsored sites. Or, themes that are sponsored, yet don’t REQUIRE that I leave those links on there.

Thanks for your input. I just sorta stumbled across this.

By: Paul Enderson

Paul Enderson — Mon, 28 May 2007 15:18:37 +0000

Yup – that’s the article I couldn’t find! Thanks for that…

I agree totally. Some people would be happy to leave sponsorship in place, but others will avoid a particular theme if they’re forced to carry advertising on it.

I saw a theme release yesterday, and the creator said that he was no longer releasing themes under the GPL licence because of the legal stance – and would instead be using a ‘Sponsorware’ licence. Of course, this argument doesn’t hold any water if the WordPress licence automatically covers derivatives.

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:48:26 +0000

Paul, the “legality” issue comes from WordPress being released as GPL. WordPress says anything distributed using its internal functions – as themes do – must be free, also. Sponsored themes attempt to spook theme users into not removing these links. I’ve no problem with people offering sponsored themes – just don’t imply end-users can’t delete the links.

Here’s a good summation of the issue.

By: Paul Enderson

Paul Enderson — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:12:53 +0000

Thanks for the support Ed! I vaguely recall reading a post somewhere, that said sponsored themes were actually illegal if the WordPress licence was taken into account.

However, as is often the case, I can’t find it now!

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:08:37 +0000

I’m with Paul on the sponsored theme issue; they go against the entire open model. If people want to distribute adthemes, the designs should at least be a cut above the run-of-the-mill.

By: skarld

skarld — Sat, 26 May 2007 06:22:18 +0000

I would like to extend the same invitation except I plan on using tags.

By: Paul Enderson

Paul Enderson — Sat, 26 May 2007 00:59:21 +0000

That’s a fantastic idea! I’d like to think that this will end up being a higher quality selection of themes than is currently available from other WordPress theme directories!

I’m against sponsored themes – what’s your viewpoint, just out of interest?