Following the kerfuffle about GPL and themes I still have licensing on my mind. Mostly because I think there is an inequality about the whole system. It doesn’t help perhaps that I have been reading a basic introduction to Marx’s Das Kapital, but nonetheless I still feel that licensing has some way to go. What I am wondering about now is licensing by principle.

When Matt was on WordPress weekly there was some discussion in the chat room about what The spirit of the GPL really means. To someone who works with regulations, as I do, it is fairly obvious but to others it can be a hard concept to grasp. There is an expectation that you will abide by the spirit of the rules even though there are holes in the letter of the rules large enough to ride a whale through.

I wonder then if the licences have been too strict for community players, focussing on what you must do. Perhaps a shared understanding is more important; after all, very few theme authors are going to test the GPL in court.

So what should the licence contain? I would suggest it begins with a simple statement that you must actually agree to the points in order to use it:

In order to make use of this software in any way you must agree with the following statements of principle. If you genuinely agree with these statements of principle you may use this software without restriction of any kind.

With that out of the way what should the principles be? Here are a few I have come up with:

1. It is not reasonable to restrict the way people use the results of your work if using the work doesn’t place limitations on yourself or others.
2. It is right for you to be paid fairly for the work that you do where that work results in the creation of value for others.
3. It is right for you to pay a fair amount for another person’s work where you gain value from it.
4. It is not reasonable to expect compensation where your contribution does not result in the creation of value.
5. It is wrong to act in opposition to these principles.

They are necessarily high level and, of course, there are loop holes. What principles would you propose?

Projects like WordPress started, and were licensed, on an ideal. The fact that the commercial world has now caught up shouldn’t be a barrier to following an ideal, the ideal needs to change to support it. I think principals are a good thing, but others may see them as an excuse to argue. I think, however, that by being less specific, and asking someone to agree that they are valid in the first place would be less likely to be subject to abuses. What do you think? Would you be comfortable using software on the basis of these principles?