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A comment on Wordpress.org released Secure Custom Fields "PRO" version with ACF pro features. Parent comment

Re:Wordpress.org released Secure Custom Fields "PRO" version... by jazzyjackson on Saturday November 23, 2024 @08:54PM (#42225390)
Whether a plugin is standalone or a combined program (and therefore a derivation) is apparently a matter of debate. Sounds like if you so much as use a data structure defined by WordPress, then by distributing your software you're really distributing a modified version of WordPress. [My read of 0] This is intuitive enough for me, if you can't use my plugin without WordPress, then really what I'm shipping is WordPress + my changes.

However, some plugins are distributed with a "split license", the php that integrated with WordPress is GPLd, but JavaScript, css, other assets are under a different license. [1] I don't think this has been tested in court one way or another. Matt of course considers this heresy [2]

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLPlugins

[1] https://www.contentpowered.com/blog/wordpress-plugins-free-g...

[2] https://ma.tt/2015/07/licenses-going-dutch/?utm_source=perpl...

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Re:Wordpress.org released Secure Custom Fields "PRO" version... by dragonwriter on Saturday November 23, 2024 @09:12PM (#42225447)
> Sounds like if you so much as use a data structure defined by WordPress, then by distributing your software you're really distributing a modified version of WordPress.

Given that reimplementing an API for interoperability is at least sometimes not a violation of copyright (see, e.g., Oracle v. Google), using a datastructure defined in a piece of software providing a plugin API to interoperate with it cannot make the resulting software exist only as a combination with the software providing the API, since it relies only on some software providing the same API, not necessarily the particular software that originally provided the API.

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