Comments on: Automattic Matt Does A U-Turn With Themes

By: desbest

desbest — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:32:04 +0000

I find nothing wrong with this. WordPress is open source, ans Automattic is a business. They actually have a good sustainable business model like Canonical.

By: Dave J. (Scoop0901)

Dave J. (Scoop0901) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:02:24 +0000

A lot of good people have left the WordPress world. Many have headed to Habari, while others have gone in other directions. Why? Because of stuff Matt’s done with WordPress, if you read the various sites.

Double-stepping like this is stupid.

Themes at $60 with half going to WP? Not!

If you talk with many of the WordPress theme developers, they find out what kind of theme you want, then go find a free theme that has the basics of what you want, then modify it to your tastes. In fact, one “theme developer” I was working with a few months ago actually sent me a proposal for a theme — the CSS and two pages as a sample — and guess what I found? The original theme creator’s name, URL, and info in the theme. At the top of the CSS file, though, what did it say? That it was created — entirely — by the person I was dealing with. Sorry, but that’s underhanded and wrong. In fact, it’s stealing. Do these “theme developers” understand copyrights, at all? They understand the copyright when they want to, but when it isn’t to their advantage, they think they can take and twist all they want.

Needless to say, the developer I was working with quickly disappeared after I threatened to forward the complete email, with full headers and attachment, to the developer of the original theme. Since the theme was never finalized, there’s not a lot the original theme developer could do, legally, so I let it go.

The theme developers — such as Sadish Bala, who I’ve purchased several themes from over the past few months — would do well to NOT associate their themes with WP’s theme plan. Instead, put up one theme, get a link back to their main site, and keep the profits in their own pocket.

It’s just like last year, when WP went after select sites using the words “WordPress” in the site’s domain name. WP threatened legal action. If you do a quick search on WordPress in Google, looking for site URLs, you will find at least 10 sites that are NOT affiliated with WordPress/Automattic that are using WordPress in the domain name. I guess the threats go out to those that don’t play by some rules Matt lays down for friends? Who knows. No matter what it is, it’s all double standards, and as long as “WordPress” (aka Automattic) is doing something, it’s kosher. If “WordPress” (aka Automattic) isn’t doing it, then it isn’t kosher.

By: Rishi

Rishi — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:47:42 +0000

Matt is obviously right. Sponsored themes are a lot heck. Plus, people don’t like to use them. Pity for plugin editors but plugin makers like that Secure PHP Contact Form for WordPress guy, they are smart, they include a backlink from the form to there site. :)

I think you should also add this to your WPAU if you want some backlinks, it can be something like “[Blog-Name] upgraded with WPAU!” :P

By: keith

keith — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:45:38 +0000

well its ok we get our share of compliments which is what matters.

By: Jared

Jared — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:34:24 +0000

I think the work you do is great and it’s slightly unfortunate that the plug-in creators will not be getting the same recognition and income as the theme developers will as a result of this “marketplace.”

By: adam

adam — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:49:44 +0000

while template design has a certain sexiness that plugin development can’t easily achieve, a marketplace could certainly work for plugins as well. there are always a ton of wp.com users begging for share this/last.fm/podcasting etc. matt could certainly extend the functionality to plugins.