Comment by pvg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pvg | Hacker News Reader

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I'd like to see some justification for this statement.

Microsoft's contention was that using GPL'ed software exposes you and your intellectual property to risk. The motivation of the parties making very broad GPL claims is not relevant - what's relevant is that it is precisely the sort of thing Microsoft was insinuating and precisely the sort of thing the linked missive tries to disclaim.

Joe Nobody, author of Yet Another PHP Blog Engine

Matt Mullenweg is hardly Joe Nobdy, nor is Wordpress Yet Another PHP Blog Engine. He represents his claims as legally sound and offers the opinion of lawyers who are, according to him "the world’s preëminent experts on the GPL". See:

http://wordpress.org/development/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/

Does anybody care about Wordpress, though? The only times I ever hear about it are when somebody's discovered another few dozen security holes. It seems to be more of an experiment in poor design than a serious project.

If his beliefs are correct, it is illegal to distribute proprietary software that only runs on Linux.

Some of the biggest blogs run on it though (cnn, gigaom, techcrunch)

Does anybody care about Wordpress, though?

Yes. This is a well-established fact.

If his beliefs are correct

If his beliefs were correct, nobody would touch anything GPL'ed with somebody else's penis. His beliefs are either posturing or a sincere misunderstanding of copyright.

  Does anybody care about Wordpress, though?

Wordpress is used on 18 million sites. Active blogs -- they track the pings to the version check server when people log in to their administration page.

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