What copyright license is FirstLastNames pluggin offered under?

virtualdavid

I have remixed your awesome plugin for my theme. I updated the views (attached) to send user to a custom Terms of Use page, but mainly I used the updated 2.1 view files and then copied and pasted in your code to add in first and last name fields. Anyway I would like to redistribute this plugin as part of my theme with credit back to you of course, but there is no copyright information in your plugin, so I'm not sure what my redistribution rights are? Cheers! David Matson

peregrine

Why are you distributing plugins as part of your. theme this is the third time you asked regarding plugin license. The reasonable thing to do is make your theme compatible with the plugin. Assuming you are not making some substantial changes in the plugin that greatly enhances it, it seems to be not a great way to go.

That is what everyone does, and that is what plugins are built in the first place. test the plugin with your theme and use it. kind of ridiculous in my opinion to go through every plugin in the add-ons (which this seems to invite other users to do).

In that way when the plugin gets updated, perople aren't stuck with your out of date code on a dead end street and the don't have to mess with wondering if your theme already does the plugin aspects, and it makes it complex for the user who switches themes to have a plugin do one thing and the theme another.

sounds like the wrong way to go.

No offense, but it sounds like you are going against the whole flavor of vanilla.

vrijvlinder

Yea can you imagine a theme that contains 75 plugins ?

We already have seen what happens with a few themes that are out there with cloned views , specially for the registration page.

A plugin only needs css and you add it to the theme. Not the whole plugin....

hgtonight

When in doubt, contact the author. You can find @jspautsch‌'s email in the plugin info array at the top of the class.firstlastnames.plugin.php file.

jspautsch

Oh, do whatever you want with it. Credit is fine, but it's a minor plugin that I haven't actively maintained in a while.

hgtonight

Sounds like the WTFPL license: http://www.wtfpl.net/about/

virtualdavid

@jspautsch said:
Oh, do whatever you want with it. Credit is fine...

Thanks so much! This plugin is probably more useful than you might imagine for scholar/science and professional networking forums where it is important to attribute people with their real names. I really liked the http://www.pixelcorps.com/networking/ forum, which is a professional CGI, digital film maker, studio, etc. group out of the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to requiring actual first and last names, they also require black-and-white head shots of all members.

I'm used to the content licenses like CC0 1.0 Universal that waves all creator rights, but it seems software licenses also protect the creator from lawsuits over future use of the code in the form of warranty language. So your waiver here protects me, should you change your mind in the future, but it doesn't protect you from a troll using the legal system to financially harm others. I remember Jay Leno's regular bit about bizarre warnings on products to protect manufactures from lawsuits: "Warning: Do not stick hot curling iron in bodily orifice."

Anyway, thanks so much for the permission, I'm going to put my remix of the code (which was mainly to update the view files using 2.1 default registration page code, and extend the first and last name text boxes to match the new 2.1 look) on GitHub under the same license as the rest of Vanilla, which Linc informed is a GNU GPL2 license. I'll insert a ReadMe in the plugin file with credit to you, your above original plugin page, and your permission forum post.

Linc

For the record, copyright & license are 2 separate issues. The author always retains the copyright regardless of the license.

That's why we require a contributors' agreement when you send us pull requests affirming you won't abuse that copyright in the future (and we're allowed to do things like, say, offer Vanilla under a dual license in the future if we wanted without getting permission from every contributor).

virtualdavid

@Linc said:
For the record, copyright & license are 2 separate issues. The author always retains the copyright regardless of the license.

Thanks Link! I found this source, which gets into the details for those who like me are having trouble connecting the open-source copyright dots: Who Owns the Copyright for An Open Source Project. Oh, and just to get it out there all legal like, these posts (like anyone would think otherwise) are not legal advice .