Also, licensing law is a form of contract law that dictates how intellectual property can be used by others. Licensing cannot dictate how other people’s intellectual property is used. I’m not mixed up about anything.

I don’t want to sound condescending, but what law school did you attend? I attended the University of Houston, one of the top intellectual property legal programs in the nation.

Anyway, I wish you would write about the fact that Matt and I are discussing these things together and trying to come to an agreement, which is how it should work. Instead, you’re writing about one aspect and ignoring the rest.

This is how people come to suspect an agenda.

First, i don’t think that Thesis are legally bound to disclose their source code. they are a separate installation that is dependent on WordPress but isn’t distributed with wordpress. Any user wishing to use Thesis must install it by itself, and therefore not infringe the GPL.

Clause 2 of the GPLv3 states: “You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.”

But I don’t think that Thesis violates GPL because of the aggregation clause: “A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.”

Claiming that thesis, as a theme, is a part of is not “combined with it such as to form a larger program” is in the realm of reasonabilty. otherwise, where do you draw the line? does the Apache software and PHP construct a larger program?

Well, I hope that if it gets to court, I can try it again.