It looks like your site is using a theme based on my website (https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/, source at https://github.com/ruuda/blog). That is fine — it is open source after all, licensed under the GPLv3. But I can’t find the source code for your site, and I can’t find any prominent notices saying that you modified my source. Could you please add those?
Sounds like yes, they are flattered for exactly that. And it's totally ok.
There exists small joys in life, like being flattered for something that other people might not think are much of a big deal.
I guess that's one reason why something may be called flattering in the first place, if they didn't see it as being all that much in their own eyes, but somebody else appreciates it.
The distinction can be difficult to make, but I think it is relatively clear here.
I'm "reading between the lines" here so could be wrong, but "looks like your site is using a theme based on" implies to me that there is enough code (markup, styles, perhaps script) similarly that is enough to not be pure coincidence. That suggests using some of the code not just being inspired to produce a clean-room design, so the GPL is relevant.
My understanding is unless he's distributing it (not just serving it from a website) he doesnt need to release his changes. That's what the AGPL is for.
It's not the copyright on the server code that is at issue, but the copyright on the HTML and CSS files (and portions thereof) that get distributed by the server.
You see the contradiction, right? If it's about the HTML and the CSS the user has that code directly by visiting the site. No further action would be needed.
If it's about something that creates the HMTL and CSS, then OP has no requirement because of the GPL just from people visiting the site and accessing the output CSS/HTML. Because that's not distributing the code as defined by the GPL. The original author should have used the AGPL for that case - and if it's really just about HTML/CSS a different license altogether.
> If it's about the HTML and the CSS the user has that code directly by visiting the site. No further action would be needed.
Wrong. Transmitting modified GPL works requires more than just distributing the source:
a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date.
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so.
First, that is for Conveying Modified Source Versions. See the definition of conveying:
> To “convey” a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.
Generally the common position here is to use the AGPL if you want to cover regular network access. Probably all a bit murky because the GPL does not really fit well to things like this. But mostly it does not apply here, pretty specifically by definition.
Maybe you'd have a point regardless if the source was directly the HTML and CSS. And it seems like I was wrong with the modification notice (but I wasn't thinking about modifications in particular). But it's not HTML and CSS directly. Having looked at the source in question now the transmitted HTML and CSS is evidently not the source code, as both is produced by template files.
The actual GPL uses the word "convey", not distribute or serve. [1](section 5). Merriam-Webster defined "convey" as "to transfer or deliver". Pretty hard to argue that a web server does not transfer or deliver HTML + CSS.
Next time, have some courtesy for the author and the rest of us by requesting via personal exchange over email instead of hijacking the thread and distracting from the conversation.
whoa there. the gpl v3 only require to have the gpl v3 declaration visible and to be copmpliant source code can be provided on demand, no need to have a source code link in the object as long as a a contact is available and the code is provided at a reasonable cost.
They look similar at a glance (border-top + Calluna font), so he might have taken inspiration from yours, but doesn't seem to have used any of your assets - the styles are clearly different and based on the WP 'BlankSlate' theme.
(my personal blog had a top border like that a decade ago, when styles on the body were a novelty :))
I checked the source and it does indeed mention https://wordpress.org/themes/blankslate/, but judging from the screenshot there, that theme is just really a blank theme with no style at all, and it was used to include a different stylesheet.
So, just to be clear, you are perfectly fine with someone taking something someone else created and violating the terms upon which they were given that thing?
e.g. If I took code you wrote and lets say released under an MIT license and claimed I wrote it and didn't give you any credit, and in fact released it under another license entirely, you'd be fine with that?
It's perfectly valid to criticize the original license choice.
GPLv3 is a very restrictive license, especially for what is essentially a micro blog (though I dislike the license for most open source software anyway).
Add on the original author going after a bit of CSS, not even the main effort of the project in question, and you've got my "petty" comment.
There is an artist who takes images from magazines, repurposes them for his own art, and sells them for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then gets sued by the magazines & photographers & artists, and guess what, HE WINS AGAINST THOSE LAWSUITS. Copyright is BS, especially concerning HTML & CSS code. What a joke.
Not the parent but your question and the implicit accusation is way too overblown. The design here is so generic that it can easily be used by tons of site out there. It's just a few lines of CSS here and there and if I have a design like that and come across something similar I would just chalk it up to someone with similar taste. Going out of your way to demand attribution for it is the very definition of petty.
> e.g. If I took code you wrote and lets say released under an MIT license and claimed I wrote it and didn't give you any credit, and in fact released it under another license entirely, you'd be fine with that?
If I released it on Github, under any license whatever? I’d more or less be expecting that.
If it was about the 4hr of work that went into my blog theme, I wouldn’t be bothered at all.
But then, I wouldn’t release anything like that under the GPL.
The author probably cares about either copy-left or the right to tinker. Some people believe it's important and others don't.
Basically any derivative product out of GPL3 code needs to either be open-source/copy-left, or if it uses the code as a library needs to let end users substitute that library for their own version.
Worse than unimportant, I find copyleft harmful to the developer community as a whole. Software is hardly "free" when you have to bend to the author's demands to license your entire rest of your project under their ideology if you want to use it, and I think we should stop calling it so. Maybe "Conditionally Free Software" instead. You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable. It works for the Linux kernel and self-contained applications but that's it.
Copyleft is about maximizing the users's rights, not the developers's rights. Companies can't take linux, put it on a router for sale, and then say that their customers/users aren't allowed to know what's going on on the box in terms of backdoors and spying. The users have a right to look at the source code if they wish.
It may focus on user's rights, but it still requires technical expertise to exercise half of the 4 freedoms: #1 (inspection & modification) and #3 (distributing your modifications). Merely knowing to ask "can I see the source code" I would put into the "technical user" realm. Overwhelmingly, most people don't know or don't care.
The other two freedoms #0 (freedom to run) and #2 (freedom to share) are readily obvious to non-technical users. "Double click to run" and "drag and drop <on external drive> to copy". Unfortunately, they are also often permitted by non-free/libre software. So non-technical users that can readily see they can do #0 and #2 and generally have no litmus test to further determine whether the software is "free/libre".
This is a case where the ideology's practical concerns hamper its purity. I critique despite generally liking the FLOSS ideal, but it's important to know its flaws.
The users don't have to be technical to benefit from those freedoms though - there's a level of indirection involved. I might not have personally scrutinized every line of the Linux kernel, but knowing that there are tons of people in the world with the ability and motivation to do that inspires confidence.
I am not arguing that one has to be technical in order to benefit from those freedoms. I like FLOSS and agree users in general benefit.
I am saying that your example, for instance, stills falls under the "how does a non-technical user simply verify the software they just downloaded respects their freedoms?" which is an very real educational and cultural problem. For example, see the massive money and numerous gun ranges, gun stores, gun clubs, and other gun-associated organizations in the US that work to educate the "unskilled" general public on "how to be aware, recognize, and exercise their rights and freedoms" under the 2nd Amendment while respecting local laws. Folks generally are 1) aware they have the right and 2) have a low-friction no-special-technical-skilled path to exercising that right. The FLOSS movement is nowhere near that level of educating and making aware non-technical users of their freedoms, their digital rights, and how to then act upon them and exercise them. Folks generally are 1) unaware of libre software and 2) don't have a low-friction no-special-technical-skilled path to exercising that right.
They can take Linux and put it behind a locked bootloader that makes it impossible to replace with your own kernel. Sure you can have the modified sources but you can't do anything with it. Hence GPL3.
Users don't care about any of that, but developers are certainly hindered by restrictive licenses, which in turn hurts users.
I never found a right to see source code compelling as a real right. To read the assembly and modify something they bought, sure, but not an entitlement to the source.
Nobody is forcing you to use GPL code. It is stinking of entitlement to demand that you get to use other people's code regardless of what they think about it.
I don't feel entitled to it, I just consider the prevalence of copyleft bad for the developer community. License however you want, doesn't mean I'm entitled for criticizing it.
What might be stinking of entitlement is the idea users have an inalienable right to source code.
Users and developers are not different beasts. Users with source code are more likely to become developers. Developers are more likely to become users if they can tinker.
You sound very bitter that a developers that let others use their code gets to pick his license of choice. Should everything by locked down like Microsoft Windows code or an Apple phone? If what you want is for everything to be completely free from licenses instead, just code your own version and release it as freeware. If you only complain and don't then you are just being hypocritical.
>You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable
I'm not bitter, just disappointed in all the wasted developer time that happens because people get caught up in these copyleft ideas. Of course you can pick whatever license you want but that doesn't mean it can't be criticized.
> If you only complain and don't then you are just being hypocritical.
You don't need to be an architect to complain about crumbling bridges, but indeed I have released software under more free licenses.
Only if you assume copyleft code would otherwise be available for developers. The other alternative is people who don't want others profiting from their free code just don't release their code.
Well, it's easy to be disappointed in all the wasted developer time because copy left. It's transparent.
It's harder not only to be disappointed but to even notice all the wasted developer time because of closed source code because well it's even obscured how can you as a developer benefit from the code.
I made my site open source so others who like it can take a look at how it works, or give it their own twist. Visitors of my site can see that they have that freedom, but visitors of an adaptation might not know if it’s not stated anywhere.
Well I respect the question of GP if nothing then for principle. People should get their shit together and start respecting the license. The state today is horrendous and the culture is evolving into less and less respect of the license. If people don't follow them personally they wont care to follow them professionally either
Design layman here, switching between the two sites the top bar looks similar (it's just a solid line) except a different color and slightly different height. I don't see other similarities or assets coming from your site? Can you explain this request; I'm not sure two sites both using a blank horizontal rule across the top is something I would personally call out as similar.
It looks like your site is using a theme based on my website (https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/, source at https://github.com/ruuda/blog). That is fine — it is open source after all, licensed under the GPLv3. But I can’t find the source code for your site, and I can’t find any prominent notices saying that you modified my source. Could you please add those?