Comments on: Pedants and Linkware

By: differentSky / Blog / Dear Guestblock Faithful...

differentSky / Blog / Dear Guestblock Faithful... — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 07:30:34 +0000

[...] After reading this entry by Mark I got thinking about the linkware status of Guestblock. So first question, Should I remove the requirement to link back to guestblock.com? I don’t want to impose any constraints on using Guestblock but I don’t want to harm it’s propogation either. [...]

By: matthew

matthew — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:52:10 +0000

... and Guestblock!!! :D I see what you mean about the enforcing of links. I'll include the link stuff for guestblock in my releases but I'm thinking of removing the compulsory nature of it (as stated in the installation). It's not like I can be bothered to enforce that either. The only thing I would be bothered about would be if someone passed he work of as their own.

By: Broken Kode » Templates License and Manji

Broken Kode » Templates License and Manji — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:05:20 +0000

Hmm, ok after I wrote my previous post I strolled over to this link over at Mark’s website. For those in the dark, Mark is an incredibl [...]

By: khaled

khaled — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:53:27 +0000

I’m writing another post right now about this issue. Truely this little conversation was a massive eye opener and it kind of made things oh so much clearer. Seriously.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:07:46 +0000

Hi Khaled :)

It’s not just Michael’s comments. Yes, I saw the entry but no I did not read all the comments. At the time, and having seen a default 1.5 install I felt he had a point. But that was one blog with one issue. I then came across some more impassioned stuff between other bloggers – and it just struck me as odd.
I’m not going to get into individual bits – it was never about that – and I agree again about the displaying of a credit (it was never a requirement that Gemini be credited but I did, and that credit will remain despite the site not being there) and if I used another template I would credit that as well.

Licensing has to be the way forward.

By: khaled

khaled — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:27:58 +0000

Hmm funny you should pu this up, erm, did I have something to do with it? Well I think you might also be refering to Michael’s comments, however I will say that I only mentioned something because people were crediting me their entire site :).

But I will tell you why ‘designers’ like to do this. It’s part of ‘our’ culture to tag things. An artist will sign his piece of artwork, and a small link seen from the eyes of a design person, is in fact a small thing, and a signature of work. Nothing more.

I can completely understand where you’re coming from. You’re right, I have no idea who coded php or xammp, or filezilla etc, but I know Everlado the icon designer of KDE. You can see the difference straight away in my priorities.

Now I’ve started thinking about it and maybe I should just rethink my comment and just say, if you want to keep a link as a thank you, go for it, here’s what to do, otherwise don’t worry about it… it’s GPL….

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:39:06 +0000

t a s – I can, yes, but I was digging at someone who says “You must link me !”
If that, and that alone is the requirement, then doing what I suggested would satisfy that – and annoy the creator. And if creators then insert links and say you must leave this untouched, it WILL be removed by people when the presentation of that link does not suit their site. In such a case, the creator is asking for problems. Then of course, they will have emails from people saying “Can it be pink not black text” or “Can I put the link on another page” and a variety of other stuff that I would imagine will get old very fast.

And all this because there wasn’t enough clarity.

Choose a licence, write your docs, release. Or not. I don’t care either way, but it’s a mess right now with some stuff.

By: the absent student

the absent student — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:20:40 +0000

link ? No problem – itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll either be set with CSS for no display, or in a font 4px high and/or set to match the bg colour.

Can you see how I might have misread that as suggesting that people conceal the linkbacks?

I am with you on clarity of licensing, though. Before slapping a CC licence on my stuff I made damn sure I knew what the licence involved and that it was suitable for my purposes. You can’t release anything under the GPL and then complain about not being credited. It’s the price you pay for having your code eligible to be included in the WP core. :wink:

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:46:03 +0000

Thanks for dropping by Cyndy :)

It’s odd that some people will study a EULA before opening something, but then get sloppy when it’s their work.

By: Cyndy

Cyndy — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:24:14 +0000

I wandered over here from the support forums and saw this and had to comment. It’s kind of funny because I have this same go-round with a lot of people that I collaborate with doing graphic editting and webpage design and sometimes the sheer lack of ignorance among them all is enough to boil my insides. I totally agree with you 100%. Saying something is one thing but really meaning it’s another – and sometimes stubbornly disagreeing that you’re wrong – really needs to be defined better.

And I thought you were perfectly clear (though I am pretty notorious for talking around myself so perhaps it’s only me).