Lately we’ve discovered more than a handful of sites using modified versions of our WPtouch mobile plugin, with our byline removed and no mention of us or WPtouch whatsoever. As a couple of guys who’ve put countless hours (and that’s not an exaggeration, really there’s no way we could count!) into this project, it’s a kick in the teeth to find out that someone else has entirely stolen your work, which you’ve offered for free to the open source community.

What’s GPL?

From the GPL preamble:

The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program–to make sure it remains free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies also to any other work released this way by its authors.

You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to respect the freedom of others.

Now, when I speak of others’ modifications of WPtouch, I’m not speaking of it in the sense of a derivative work, or something whereby pieces of the code were used to construct something entirely different. What I’m beefing about is the simple removal of the byline in the footer of WPtouch— the line that gives credit to WordPress (the open source publishing platform) and WPtouch.

These kinds of modifications to us are perceived as methods to infer or imply the ownership of the work(s). To me, there’s no way they could not be inferred as such. Some people think that to visibly show you’ve used someone’s else work on your website or blog is a bad thing. We think that’s pure, 100% bullocks, and a very disingenuous approach. If an author of a GPL project has expressly placed a byline, and wishes for it to stay there, the least you can do in using the product is keep it there.

There’s plenty of people who openly and proudly trumpet using Web 2.0 tools on their sites, and for good reason- it allows others who may be interested in using something similar to find out more by clicking a byline link.

In our case we don’t sell these plugins, they’re (and always will be) free to all and licensed under GPL. What we sell is ourselves; we sell (by proxy the plugins and their craftsmanship)— our web design and development skills.

In visiting our site people have the opportunity to review this and if interested, consider us for a web project they may have in mind. WPtouch (and every other plugin we’ve ever made) were however never created with this intention— it’s simply that Duane came up with a few of the plugins, we’ve worked together on a few plugins, and BraveNewCode was borne out of our relationship.

I think it’s important to note that there are many ways in which the ‘free’ moniker which has cloaked almost everything related to the internet (from file sharing to the models which newspapers have resorted to). It’s an epic tale all unto itself, but the perception that everything on the web should be inherently free really stems from the adhoc, hacker & grassroots origins, qualities & makeup of the World Wide Web.

It’s in this genealogy that we can understand how many view the internet almost as a virtual ‘garage sale’ where the price tags read $0 and everyone’s free to mix and match, barter and re-engineer. But there’s a great deal of hypocrisy instead, with many sites and blogs grabbing items at the garage sale, but using them in their own bake sales, turning profits.

One such site is using WPtouch to sell iPhone-related jailbroken apps. Another is using WPtouch as a means to collect people for a mobile-based conference. There’s probably hundreds of scenarios where our work is being using in conjuction with a commerical aim, and we don’t take exception to this directly, but rather that it’s being done without any mention or credit to us. The trouble with free in this case is that its inferred to mean “free to be mine” by those with the inclinations to perceive it this way.

The worst part of course is that we’ve worked tirelessly to improve and expand upon our offerings for everyone, and ask very little in return: credit for what we gave. All of this said, the vast majority of users have overwhelmingly been incredibly supportive, and hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts and reviews with credit and praise have been written, more than making up for the bad apples in the bunch.

In closing, if you’re not sure about whether or not you can remove bylines or other credit to a creator of a work, simply mail them and ask. In some cases you’ll find some might ask for a donation to do so, some may be fine with it, and others make decisions on a case by case scenario. In general, as a rule, if there’s a byline or other credit visibly displayed within a work it’s there for a reason, and the very little you can do in using the free work is keep it there.