Some thoughts on the CP plugins directory

Plugins
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I noticed that on WP the plugins are now almost all freemium. For goodness sake, it is more than legitimate to try to make money from your hard-earned work. The problem is that too often the freemium plugins present do not offer real free features, but only marginal features or tasters. I tested a firewall plugin: well done, it identifies the malware, but it doesn’t tell you what or where, and to eliminate the malicious code you have to purchase a paid plan that is quite expensive in terms of costs. In this case, the functionality (scanning) is completely useless and does nothing but alarm you, perhaps due to a false positive, leading you to purchase the paid plan.

I admit that after examining several plugins on the WP directory, I notice how the standard has lowered: many plugins don’t really do anything, and to really work or to work for what they claim, you discover that you have to buy them. In fact, the WP repository has become a marketplace. And open source plugins are too old to be reliable.

Yesterday I was rereading the rules for publishing a plugin on ClassicPress: which also allows the publication of paid plugins. It left me perplexed. Above all, the rule that allows the publication of premium plugins. What connection can there be between GPLv2 and a premium plugin: if a premium plugin does nothing without being able to purchase it, it is in fact an empty plugin, without any useful code that can be forked or used freely. Because it is clear that a developer (I would be the first) does not leave premium features available (even if hidden or blocked) on a plugin released for free and in open source.

Mind you, I’m not against premium plugins (I’ve also made them upon request and maybe I’ll make more), but I think this aspect should be handled outside the CP directory. Therefore, personally I would have stopped at the freemiums, with one clarity: these plugins must actually be not only functional, but also actually useful for the purpose they declare: a plugin that declares A and then doesn’t do it, or does B (which maybe I don’t serves), it is not useful, even if it is formally functional. On WP I have seen plugins that are evasive about their free features, causing confusion. And it amazes me how the enforcement team let them through.

Another consideration concerns the failure to update a plugin: I totally agree that the developer must keep his plugin updated, but it seems extremely rigid to me to remove the plugin from the directory only one month after the CP update. It would have been better to establish that if the developer does not update within a month, the plugin will be suspended (hidden and inaccessible). And if within one year of suspension, the plugin is not updated, then it is considered abandoned and therefore removed. I say this because it can also happen that among hundreds of emails arriving in your email inbox, an email like this could slip through or end up in spam.

Other degradation of WP plugins and the crowding of advertising notifications or invitations to subscribe to newsletters etc. at the top of the admin pages. Annoying and inconvenient, they lead you to disable the plugin just for this reason. I’m happy that CP put a stop to this mess by requiring the developer to use advertising notifications only within the plugin page.

Finally, just to let you know, I asked the developer of a surprisingly good firewall plugin in its free version (Ninja Firewall and NinjaScanner) if he would release a version compatible with ClassicPress. Let’s be clear, the WP version works well, but in the scan, it gives many false positives regarding file modification, because the comparison is made between an intact version of WP and CP files. Unfortunately he replied that they won’t do it for now. Sin. :frowning:

Regardless, I’m looking forward to submitting my plugins to the CP directory. We need to grow, so that even the biggest developers develop for ClassicPress! :slight_smile:

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The GPL license (whether v2 or v3) doesn’t require software to be available free of charge. It requires free as in freedom, not free as in beer. That’s why the CP Directory allows paid plugins.

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3

First and foremost, the directory does NOT list paid plugins. It lists free plugin and IF there is a pro version hosted somewhere else you can indicate the URL to that site and people can purchase it from there. Also plugins are reviewed before admission. a poorly coded plugin won’t pass.

Second, GPL (or Open Source for that matter) is not a synonym of free, it has never been. A software can be both Open Source AND paid.

The term “open source” only pertains about what you can do or not do with the code, the “open” part means the code is non-obfuscated and that everybody can see it, while “source” literally stands for the code itself. Open code (as in open source) according to the license under which it is released to the public can be used for commercial or personal use, forked, altered and even resold in its altered form, given that you give the correct credit where due and you apply the same license to what you sell. This basically means that any piece of open source code can become a source of income to you if you decide to add your own thing to it and resell it as new software, even if that software was free in the first place.

Close code (that is proprietary, like Microsoft for example) is code you can’t see, alter, or resell because it is “owned” by the people who programmed it in the first place. It is sold to you for a specific use (personal or commercial meaning you can profit from using it in some cases). It’s at the discretion of the owner giving it for free or paid but the closed license protects them from people who want to copy the code, in case it happens they can very well sue the perpetrator.

I can agree with you that a freemium plugin with a free and paid version should give a certain level of basic features, and be usable in it’s free version. That however is up to the company developing it because they decide on the business model used to market it.

People enjoy coding and often release their code as open source, they however need you to respect them when they offer you an open source software for free, they do not need you asking for the moon and expect it to be free, for developers it’s not an hobby even if they enjoy it, it’s a job, and as such it has to pay the bills.

A security plugin in the free version offering only the scans and asking you to pay to do other things on top of that, in reality does something. It warns you of security threats and this is the value of the free version.

You can argue that they have very high prices, you might not have the budget to pay for it now, or you might not be willing to pay. That is fine, because there are many options and you can select another plugin to do the job (I use shield security, free version BTW).

About asking developers to support CP, that is a very good move. Unfortunately again, supporting CP for them is a business decision, they might have to spend hours to make their products compatible and have to maintain them as such, and in the long run if this is not really profitable it’s a business risk they can’t afford to take on in the long run.

4

Essentially, I pay to have software released under GPLv2, and then I can redistribute or use this software as I please: using it in whole or in part for my own purposes.
In the preamble license GPLv2 says this if I understand correctly:

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 this service 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.

I don’t think there is anyone willing to make their premium software available under GPLv2 or 3 or similar license, so that others can use it, redistribute it and perhaps fork it. And this is why the freemium system is used: not only does it allow you to sample features, but it allows you to exclude code with premium features from open source licenses.

The premium plugins that I purchased over time placed serious limits on their use: including no possibility of redistributing the software, forking it, dismembering it or taking pieces of it to build your own.

I continue to believe that there is a fundamental incompatibility between the GPL and premium plugins. If you charge me for a premium GPL-licensed plugin, you must accept that I may redistribute it or reuse its code. Otherwise the GPL license makes no sense. After all:

. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

If you have examples of premium plugins under the GPL license (2 or 3), let me know. Personally, I would never put my premium plugin under the GPL license, but under a commercial license, so that no one can resell, redistribute, copy the code legally.

Thanks anyway for the comparison. It was educational! :slight_smile:

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Actually, almost all premium plugins for WordPress are GPL licensed. For example, add-ons for WooCommerce are GPL licensed.

So how can money be made on premium plugins? The answer is that the license doesn’t provide any guarantee of support. If someone obtains a premium plugin, chances are that they will want to be sure that the developer provides support. That’s what users pay for.

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Okay. But when this is the case, it is specified that you pay for support. In this case, however, normally the plugin or add-ons can be freely downloaded and used (perhaps this is the case for Woocommerce add-ons, but it is a plugin that I have never used), but if a user wants to have support he pays a fee. Instead, I have come across plugins or add-ons that I have to purchase for them to work or do certain things (e.g. remove malware). There is no choice: if you download the software you pay, whether you want support or not. In fact, if you release such a plugin or add-on under the GPL license, you give the buyer of your product the power to redistribute the software, use it in other software, use parts of it, even if in compliance with that license. And then, your business goes to waste, because me who buys it could decide to redistribute that plugin and that add-on for free. That’s why if I had a premium plugin, I wouldn’t release it under the GPL license. Also because this license does not provide that if I redistribute software I will recognize a patent fee to whoever wrote it. GPL was created precisely to prevent the software under its license from becoming proprietary software.
However, I will try to look into the matter further. It seems interesting to me for a future development of a commercial plugin. Thanks!

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Okay. But when this is the case, it is specified that you pay for support.

Actually, most of the time the sale of the premium plugin comes together with a promise of support. Selling support separately happens but is rarer.

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you forget something important. you pay for two things basically:

  1. someone is expert enough (meaning they studied and practiced a lot and built their confidence to be able to release the software to the public) and is willing to code a piece of software (and release it GPL) - Coding the software might take hours from a person’s life and it is a job even if the person has fun doing that. You pay for these hours spent coding the software and also maintaining it functional and add features to it once released.

  2. you additionally pay for the support you might need when using the software, basically you pay for the right to ask questions when something does not work, or to be explained how to use the software at its best.

Again, the myth that “the dev had fun coding the thing, released it GPL so it MUST be free of charge” is BS - sorry to put it bluntly. Devs have fun coding but its their job. Would you ask for free coffee when going to a coffee shop only because the bartender making it is having fun making coffees?

The fact is that you aren’t counting the value of the hours worth of work these people put into coding the software and answering customer support tickets and managing the overall intricacies of having to open a company just to trade software.

Again, you can totally fork, modify and sell a premium plugin that is open sourced. Yes there are premium plugins that are proprietary, but the majority is open sourced. and there are a whole lot of licenses for open sourcing software and each one has its rules, perks and defects. Generally you need to read them to know the extent of what you can do with the software.

BTW, one of the biggest WP plugins (in terms of width of distribution) is Woo, and it is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Specifically, it is licensed under the GPL version 3 that allows you to fork it, modify it and redistribute it at your heart’s content even asking for payment when redistributing it. And CP did that with ClassicCommerce releasing it for free.

It was done also with Rankmath SEO that became Classic SEO.

And both WP plugins are freemiums (so you have to pay to get ALL the features and the free one is limited).

I hope you reflect on the fact you need to separate the concept of open source (that ONLY relates to what can be done with the code, and the rights to use/modify/redistribute it) and free as in free of charge. And I hope you realize that every dev has the right to decide for themselves if they want to be paid or not (I know devs who stand for giving freely and others who consider coding a job).

the open source world is freedom, as Tim said above. and I think that there is a place for everyone in it. However there must be the acknowledgement and respect of the fact that one person work is worth no matter if the software is free, freemium or paid. no matter how much or how little they allow you to use for free, devs have the right to be respected and not depreciated.

personally, if I find a paid plugin that is open source of benefit for my sites, and I am sure it’s cost effective for me or the customer I am building the site for, I either can purchase it or fork it and maintain it or take inspiration and code my own. I did it in the past with several plugins, without batting an eye or questioning the open source and paid pairing. Those devs worked, it seemed fair they wanted a salary to support their families and themselves to me.

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Look, Elisabetta, I know the difference. And precisely because I know it and I know the work behind a plugin, I find it strange to put the GPL license and commercial plugin in the same sentence, unless you mean that you pay to download, but then with the software you download you can do whatever you want, even resell it, release it for free or use it to create your own commercial plugin. The problem is that with commercial plugins you can’t do what you want with them: the developers of those plugins put clear limits on their use and distribution, unless it’s the freemium version which they may actually release under the GPL, but which they don’t have all premium features. In fact, commercial plugins, if they impose limits on their use and distribution (you often find the formula: usable only for one domain, for two domains, for three etc., with even significant price differences), cannot be released under GPL license, because this license guarantees that you have specific rights on the software of which you obtain a copy, including redistribution, even for a fee, fork, etc.
Woocommerce is a freely downloadable plugin. I don’t know if there is paid support, but it is still freely downloadable. Or at least it was some time ago.
Long story short: if you really want to allow the loading of premium plugins, make it clear that the payment is only for support and download, without any other limits, just as the GPL license requires.

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I thought in some cases the ‘free’ and ‘paid’ versions are actually separate entities. Using your example (though I have no idea if it really applies to that specific Plugin): I download the free version of the Plugin, which is feature limited, it also has a GPL and the freedoms associated with GPL. However, once I pay for the upgraded version, it completely replaces the free version and could have a different license.

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No, you have it the wrong way round. The GPL license means that developers can’t do that. They might say they can place such limits on use of their software, but they’d be wrong.

You are, of course, correct that many developers purport to place these limits on their plugins. But in almost every case, those plugins are released under a GPL license, so those limits are actually meaningless so far as the law is concerned.

Maybe those developers hope that no-one will realize this; maybe they don’t really understand the license they have adopted; or maybe it’s just that they have been compelled to adopt a GPL license because they have created a product that is itself derivative of GPL-licensed software (so, if they don’t comply, they themselves will be behaving illegally). But, so far as the law concerned, the reason is irrelevant because the GPL license is clear.

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No. That’s a common misconception. But it remains a misconception.

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For completeness, I should add that there is one circumstance that allows a developer not to share the code of GPL-licensed software (so it then can’t be passed on to anyone else either): that is when the software is not actually distributed but is made available as a SAAS.

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You know Tim, I worked for a long time in a law firm and did legal and legal studies before dedicating myself to web applications, and therefore it is inevitable that a lot of that twenty-year experience has remained within me and leads me to annoy you here on the forum about these wait ( :joy:). What you say is correct and I agree with it, but as I’ve always thought: no one actually wants legal trouble, even when they’re right.

What in my opinion should be done, net of the enormous work you are doing to give shape to a directory for ClassicPress, is to clarify better that whoever inserts their own premium plugin in the CP directory must do so with the obligation to adopt the license GPL, so the user pays for downloading the plugin and possibly assistance, but not the right to freely use the plugin wherever and however he pleases within the limits of the GPL license. Especially this applies to those developers who require a subscription for the use of their plugin. The subscription itself characterizes proprietary software, because you are actually paying to use the product and not to download it and get dedicated support.

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As a law professor, I’m well aware that no-one wants to get the law involved. But it’s also my job to explain what the law is. (What others choose to do with that information is up to them.)

Accordingly, I can’t endorse the idea of ClassicPress making misleading statements purporting to limit the ability of users to use software in the Directory as they wish. Apart from anything else, that would leave the ClassicPress Initiative and those of us who manage the Directory liable for misrepresentation.

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Sorry, I didn’t understand exactly what the misleading statements you are referring to would be. Can you explain yourself better? Thanks, Tim for explanation.

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@iljester your suggestion to amend the directory guidelines to include that people are not free to peruse the code of premium plugins. If the plugin is licensed as open source, paid or not, it is illegal to limit its perusal.

That said, I think I get what you do not understand.

Let me clarify, in open source people legally give the right to other people to peruse the code even if the software is paid for a variegated numbers of reasons, all boiling down to a broader concept: I am because we are. In this perspective, allowing people freedom on the code itself empowers the community (who knows what nice things can another dev make using my own code?), this increases progress because everyone has freedom to explore and modify and learn from others by reading their code. In turn the dev gets paid for developing the code and maintaining it AND gets to live their values to the fullest. Because open source is first and foremost a set of moral values that builds the base for a strong legal structure.

People get the idea that if I get paid for a software the code is mine because I invented it and I should protect it from other people because it is the asset that does me money, this might be true and I can totally decide to make my code closed and proprietary. But this does not hinders my ability to decide it is paid and open source (so yes, I want to make a living out of it but I adhere to the open source way of life, that in a way covers far more than the mere code and spans onto how I interact in the community at large, how I see the world and how I decide to contribute to improving it one piece of code at the time) and I allow freedom to other people on the code.

These are two opposing strategies, two way to see the world. The “it’s mine” and the “it’s everyone’s” that are both valid. each person selects the one they want.

That said CP stands for open source, as a community and as an entity. And it lives the open source values, representing them in its rules.

Someone living the “it’s mine” life might decide to never list their plugins on the directory, they might decide to have their own distribution channels, and that is totally fine.

Someone living the “it’s everyone’s” life might list on the directory or not, their choice. Since the directory is owned by CP it adheres to open source and its rules are clearly more aligned to the views and values of this second group of people.

both ways are welcome. both ways are right. it’s the dev job to decide what to do and in both cases the dev work and decisions have value.

Often people are confused about this distinction because it is not “neat” and it has to do with deep personal values. There are not many places where this is explained in good terms. To be noted also that there are many shades between the two extremities, and that somehow makes it difficult to rationalize.

Judging from your approach you are more oriented towards the “it’s mine” group, and that is fine, many devs are somewhat in the middle or more oriented towards one of the extremities because they want to have the right to protect their code but they also believe in open source. That is why there are many kinds of licenses. Each one has its freedoms and limits, and there is surely one that corresponds to what you are saying. The power of open source lays really in that, the possibility for everyone to have the right legal framework for them while remaining in the open source world, making it possible for the community at large to grow and thrive.

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Given the insistence on believing that I would not have understood something that I know perfectly well, it makes me believe that the discussion has reached a dead end and has naturally petered out. Thank you all for the interesting comparison.

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This is what would be misleading. As Elisabetta has said, the GPL license means that you can’t impose any such restrictions, even if a user has paid for the software.

More specifically, a subscription does not characterize proprietary software. It simply characterizes a contract, and what that contract says depends on its terms. If its terms include a GPL license, then the limitations you mention are inapplicable.

I’d also point out that, if software is based on other software that’s already GPL-licensed, then the new software MUST use a GPL license, whether the developer likes it or not. So, for example, my new KTS Display Widgets plugin enables a user to hide or show widgets on whichever posts or pages the user wants. But that’s clearly based on WordPress code that ClassicPress has inherited; while its purpose is to improve the user experience, it doesn’t technically add any new functionality. So even if I wanted to sell it (or a premium version of it), it would have to be GPL licensed.

That’s true too for all the WooCommerce add-ons. Woo is GPL-licensed, so all the extensions have to be too.

So how does anyone make money on this basis? Well, if a user finds a paid plugin so useful that they pay for it, they are going to want it maintained and supported. (If I’m running an e-commerce site that depends on a plugin that works out shipping rates, for example, I really need it to work!) The person best placed to do that is the developer.

It’s actually much the same as what I do in my day job. Students pay to receive a legal education, but we don’t attempt to restrict what they can do with that information or with the new skills they acquire. We want knowledge expanded.

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Thanks Tim for the explanation. For me, however, the topic is closed. Continuing would be completely useless, also because I remain of my opinion and honestly it is not my intention to prolong the discussion, especially in English. I therefore abide by the decisions of the CP Community and the Team that decides the rules. If everything is fine for the Community and for the team that decides the rules, that’s fine for me too. I just wanted to express a concern. Thanks again.

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