oh, ha, I guess I was a day late with this comment. adamsaverian

Have you tried the Jigoshop integration with Canvas? http://jigoshop.com/blog/themes/canvas-commerce/ - given that Jigoshop is still fairly new, and the main focus has been on the core code, the range of themes which are compatible is expanding all the time, but we're hoping developers and designers will continue to work with us to make the tweaks required for Jigoshop to work with any theme.

mikelittle Big difference between what you and Matt did and what Woo did. B2 was a dead product going no where. Jigoshop is a new and thriving product. And because Woo wasn't able to acquire Jigo, they forked it.

While it might be "legal" as everyone wants to say under the GPL. Which is a major flaw with the GPL. It stinks and quite frankly is bad business. Actions like this do not help or are they good for the WordPress community. Actions like this will cause people to reconsider building anything for WordPress in the future if a company like Woo can do this and get the blessing of you and other's from the WordPress community.

If you all don't see this, I worry for the future of WordPress.

GrantGriffiths It's not a major flaw with the GPL, It is the *whole point* of the GPL.

The reason the GPL is referred to as copyleft as some kind of opposite to copyright, is because the license is about protecting the *users rights* at the expense of the creators rights!

That can be really hard to get your head around if you are a developer used to being able to restrict users of your software with what they can and cannot do. But the reason I used b2 in the first place is because it was the best of the *GPL* blogging platforms at the time. I deliberately chose it *because* it was GPL.

And I started the project with Matt, *because* it was GPL, if it had not been GPL, I would not have responded to Matt's original post.

Matt has mentioned many, many times that the reason WordPress is so good, is so prominent, has such a large community, and supports so many people making money from it, is *because* of the GPL, not in spite of it.

The reason WordPress has a fantastic future is *because* of the GPL.

I'm sorry that you don't see that.

mikelittle I am sorry you don't see that what Woo did is wrong and a danger to the WordPress community. I am also sorry you don't see the difference between what you and Matt did and what Woo did.

And I am sorry you don't see where good,innovating developers might think twice before developing products for WordPress after seeing what a company like Woo did to a new and thriving product like Jigoshop.

Grant -- Is Jigoshop the plugin worse off because Woo is forking it? If a subset of the WordPress core team didn't like the direction WordPress was going and they decided to fork it and go in a different direction, is WordPress the software made worse off by that decision? Is the WordPress community directly harmed? I'm not talking any personnel changes that might occur (in either Jigoshop's or WordPress' case) because those can happen any time, I'm talking strictly about the software itself. Copying does not harm the original owner, nor does it reduce its utility to the original owner. That's why copying is not theft, and that's why it's perfectly fine what Woo did.

j_gardner "Copying does not harm the original owner, nor does it reduce its utility to the original owner."

Pretty big assumption on your part.

GrantGriffithsj_gardner It's totally legal. I think it's silly to argue that. It's just lame. Jigoshop is still rocking and it is free so what's the point of doing this? Just a way for WOO to take advantage of others work for their own monetary gain. Why fork a product if it's in active development unless you have a very good reason for doing so? Haven't heard anything from WOO that would indicate this. Forking just for $$ is lame.

GrantGriffiths A big assumption? I'm not so sure. Let's say I make a copy of a book you have. What harm has that copying caused you? The act and existence of my copy does nothing to inhibit the use or utility of your copy. Even if you're the author, the copying of your book has done you no harm. You can try to make the case that you've lost a sale as a result of my act, but if you're business plan is to try to monetize something which is not subject to the rules of scarcity, then you have much bigger problems.

j_gardner You really don't get it do you. Your comparison is so out in left field I am having a hard time even understanding how you came up with it.

Your comparison of a book is one copy. What Woo is doing is for profit and they are forking a product that is new and thriving. And don't give me the argument this is how WordPress started. That one doesn't fly. B2 was dead and WordPress forked it to bring it back.

Woo couldn't build their own. They couldn't buy Jigoshop and it appears their offer of collaboration was so one sided, it would not have been good for Jigo.

So, instead of building their own, Woo forks a new and thriving product. Call it legal and call it within the GPL if that makes all of you koolaide drinkers happy.

Let me put this as plain and clear as I can. What Woo did was bad business, bad form, lame and wrong. Legal yes. But wrong. And I can only hope it jumps up and bites them in their forking ass.

GrantGriffithsj_gardner Lame is as lame does.

or something like that.

GrantGriffiths I do get it. You think what Woo did was unethical. We'll have to agree to disagree. My comment was a direct refute to your claim that it was a big assumption on my part that copying doesn't hurt the original owner. My comparison was quite valid in that regard.

Would you have less of a problem if the 2 devs that went to Woo instead simply left Jigowatt to form their own company and forked Jigoshop in the process?

j_gardner I have a problem with anyone forking a product that is an ongoing concern. Simple as that. I don't give a crap it is within the GPL or open source. And that is the problem with the GPL.

The GPL is an outdated license that needs to be reconsidered.

edbloom "Adii has already posted a while ago in the comments on the Woo post that attempts were made to collaborate on a single codebase which didn't happen for whatever reason"

So what? Jigowatt where in no way obligated to collaborate with Woo Themes. They developed their own eComm solution and wanted to keep doing so on their own. Good on them. The right thing to do would have been for Woo Theme to do the same. They instead chose the easy way out and forked someone else's product. It may be legal, but I don't think this was the spirit behind the GPL. Legal yes, but IMO, totally wrong on many levels. The market will decide what happens going forward. I don't think this move will go over well at all in the wider WordPress community.

pixelyzed So why bother with a GPL license at all then? If someone builds something awesome and they license it so that I or anyone else can take it and build on top of that work why should I start from scratch? That's not smart at all. If you sign up for the GPL you HAVE to know from Day 1 that this is a risk - especially if you intend building a business off what your GPL'ing. I agree that if I was Jigowatt I'd be pissed real pissed right now. But the GPL and capitalism have never been good bed fellows. This episode is yet another example of that. But it is what it is. If you don't want to take this risk then build a closed source product for another platform.

edbloom Forking a free plugin or WordPress itself is one thing. They are free (as in beer). But forking a commercial product is another this entirely IMO, even if it is also GPL. As Grant mentioned, there is pressure from the top to make all WordPress themes and addons GPL. To me, Woo Themes' move is is morally wrong even if it is legal.

edbloom Perhaps, but if you want to be under the good graces of WordPress, Automattic and Matt, you don't dare license your product under anything but full GPL.

Sorry, like all of us, they had no choice.

GrantGriffiths but Grant theres always a choice - there's nothing stopping anyone from forking WordPress and/or starting a new CMS with different rules and codes of standards?

edbloom I just love how some are so quick to point out there is nothing stopping anyone from doing what might be legal. But is it really morally right? Is it good business practice?

Look at what has been said about forking,

" Forking is considered a Bad Thing—not merely because it implies a lot of wasted effort in the future, but because forks tend to be accompanied by a great deal of strife and acrimony between the successor groups over issues of legitimacy, succession, and design direction.There is serious social pressure against forking."

Why are so many so quick to look at this from the standpoint of, "there are always choices." And why justify it from the standpoint that there is nothing stopping anyone from forking WordPress?

Why not just do what is right and not take someone else's hard work and make it your own. Oh, wait, its because it is open source and I can legally steal it if I want. This will certainly make it so much easier to build child themes for Headway since it is OK to go out and just fork them.

GrantGriffithsedbloom

"Forkign is considered a bad thing -- not merely because it implies a lot of wasted effort in the future"

Is it not "wasted effort" to keep re-creating the wheel? How many WordPress themes out there are more or less forks of TwentyTen or TwentyEleven? Should those theme designers be chastised for building off the work that was already done, and instead should have written every line of code themselves?

"Forking is considered a Bad Thing" Really? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't WordPress itself a fork of B2?Seems to me like people are happy to embrace GPL when it suits them, but condem it when it doesn't suit...

GrantGriffiths "I just love how some are so quick to point out there is nothing stopping anyone from doing what might be legal. But is it really morally right? Is it good business practice?"

This is what you and I were discussing earlier.

People can argue about what "goes on all the time" and the difference between "copying" and "stealing" - but IMO - it's all about what is right and what is wrong.

Sounds naive he?

I bet a developer than gets his shit stolen (yep, I used that word as well) wouldn't think it was naive.

I'm with you Grant.

j_gardner No, I think Grant is right on the money. Yes, WordPress is a fork too but the comparison is very flawed because B2 was pretty much abandonware when Matt Mullenweg forked it instead of letting it die. The situation here is completely different. JigoWatt is a small startup trying to get a new product out there and a bigger, more mature player with, I assume, much deeper pockets is forking/using the product JigoWatt developed on their own dime instead of coming up with their own. To add insult to injury, they are also taking away the to main devs of that product but, to me, this is the lesser problem here. As you say, no one twisted their arm. It does seem to leave JigoWatt weakened but, apparently, they are not phased in the least (http://jigoshop.com/blog/2011/08/12/jigoshop-is-ev...). Good for them.

No, nothing illegal happened here, but the entire thing reeks and feels completely wrong to me. I think it's low and reprehensible no matter how you try to sugarcoat it. I see this going on as I'm watching the shopplugin.net guys (my chosen WP eComm solution) working their asses off on version 1.2 of THEIR OWN product. I am not a Woo Themes customer and, if I was, I would feel very uncomfortable with this. This moves assures I will never become a customer of theirs. To each their own.

"but the comparison is very flawed because B2 was pretty much abandonware when Matt Mullenweg forked it instead of letting it die"

Whether b2 was abandonware or not is irrelevant; a fork is a fork. Matt could have written WordPress from scratch, and apparently Grant thinks he should have, since building off of the work of others is "stealing".

"but the entire thing reeks and feels completely wrong to me."

The forking of Jigoshop does not prevent Jigowatt from releasing a better product than what Woo will come up with down the line, does it? Even if it's not as explicit as the forking of a project, we all build off the work of others. Does that mean innovation stops? If you can find 1 piece of software that's out there that lacks any inspiration from any outside sources, it'll be the first.

I'm also with Shopp, but wondering when they'll be releasing 1.2, they seem to take so long to do anything. I think this is going to come back to haunt woothemes, its legal and right but they could have done it better I guess. And good luck to Jigoshop, hope they keep developing

j_gardner Awesome position. So, I am assuming it would be right for us to go ahead and fork all of the great child themes out there so they run on Headway.

GrantGriffiths Why not? What would the problem be? You'd have to modify the theme to work with Headway, and we both know changes would be made to the codebase. It would be 100% fine. Again, copying isn't stealing.

Seriously? That would be essentially the same thing Logo Garden has done and they've been absolutely crucified. However, because we're dealing with the GPL this is all better and better? Ugh.

Hi - I'm part of the Jigoshop team and posted a new comment to cover the views of Jigoshop/Jigowatt. Essentially, we're stil committed to the GPL licence due to the amazing community benefits of open source, and we've committed more internal resource along with the brilliant external collaborators to ensure Jigoshop keeps evolving to be the best it can be. It's within GPL rules to fork a project, and that's fine - our only regret is if it splits the dev/user community rather than everyone working together to make the best possible project.

DanielThornton Thanks Daniel, I appreciate hearing your view. I too hope that Jigo evolves to be the best it can be!

BlogTechGuy No problem, and if you're using Jigoshop, or have any questions, do give me a shout/email etc, or come and say 'hi' on the Jigoshop forums. We're pretty clear on the GPL licence rules (I'm a total geek for the history and evolution of free software/open source as a compensation for my coding ineptitude), and forking is a good thing if code is being left because a developer has lost interest or isn't able to update it. It can sometimes also be positive eventually if there are two different visions of what the project should be in the future, but that's not the case here.But knowing Rob, Chris and the rest of the team and community, there are some really cool new features on the way - and there are some great stores being developed all the time, especially some of the ones being shared in the Jigoshop showcase forum.

BlogTechGuy Aren't both these plugins build on WordPress, and is that not building off many other peoples hard work? You can't have it both ways. When you build on software that is GPL you have to accept the freedoms that come with that licence, both good and bad.

LachlanJ Not quite sure why you're having a go at me, at what point have I mentioned GPL or building plugins off it? I have read the GPL and the license lets Woo do exactly what they have and there's no legal problem with that at all.