His themes are decent and well polished, but to open source themes and then revert them back to commercial only is a stab in the back to the very community that has supported him all this time.

All Brian Gardner’s latest themes are commercial, and the countless links across the web and saturating google all now redirect and funnel to the Studiopress commercial theme-selling site.

However, there is one free theme now at WordPress, it’s called Revolution Code Blue, and it’s pretty decent for a free theme I guess, but it’s VERY stripped of features compared to the $60 themes for sale.

I suppose the one free theme qualifies as something in the way of good karma – but the massive litter across the web of false information is a shame.

Can you explain a little better how they are fully GPL?

Thanks

Anyway I don’t think this kind site promotion is considered good marketing and here is why:

1) You could argue that this is a textbook case of stealth marketing (guerilla marketing gone bad)
- get people interested
- get the media hype
- get the buzz efect
- hand out free samples

One of the keypoints of guerilla marketing is that ultimately marketer must deliver the goods. And this isn’t the case anymore since at launch the the site was profiled with free dowload themes and this is better explained in my second point.

2) Some SEO specialists would call this kind of stealth marketing Blackhat SEO. Providing first free material and get the link coverage needed to get good ranks and then switch to totally paid content. If you search for keywords like: revolution 2, wordpress, theme, free, open source. You get hundreds of blog posts and referral links pointing to free download themes site. This is how revolutiontwo.com got most its link coverage.

Try to google about the announcement of the new paid model or even find it on a current website. There actually isn’t any explanation on the current website, the announcement is on Brians own blog (http://www.briangardner.com/blog/kicking-off-2009-a-bit-early.htm). Yet rather than posting a proper announcement to a current site for people asking more info in the comment boxes, he emails a link to his own site (http://www.revolutiontwo.com/blog/chrome-20-theme-released.htm/comment-page-1#comment-1286).

So I think most of the angry/dissapointed posts come from expecting free dowloads as told by search engines and lots of blog posts and getting something else without an explanation. Not because of the change of business model.

Maybe all this wasn’t made intentionally, but I think the switch could have been made better.

P.S. Maybe this wasn’t the best blog to post this comment, but it was NoRevolutions comment that made me finally post a comment about this matter.

Either kick them out or allow commercial themes in…

There is no setup guide with themes and I have to purchase the support to know how to set them up. Do you think this is right? Revolution team seems to have used the “Open Source” words to become famous.

You can see that there is even necessary plugins missing with the new update. Just go to revolutiontwo site, download a theme, and see. Without a basic setup guide, how one can use them. It is nonsense.

Regards,
Carter

I have no idea what shoemoney is talking about above. There is nothing shady about Brian or the Revolution theme that I have seen. And as Brian has pointed out, the existing Revolution themes that people have paid for will be gone forever. The NEW Revolution will be released under GPL, not the existing themes. At least that’s how I understood his announcement.

This will ruffle feathers from the folks that set up shop to make a buck off the affiliate sales or development fees. If you know of an uproar discussion going on please send me a link.

Below are a couple of articles to read to get an understanding of what this talk is all about.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Basic questions about the GNU Project, the Free Software Foundation, and its licenses

http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/
The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

@Shoemoney, That was my first thought too. What about those that purchased the developer packages?

The folks that set up affiliate sites to promote these themes will suffer. Those that set up advertising campaigns will be affected.

Other than that I do think this is a positive direction, but I will still pay for premium services regardless.

Personally, I’m happy to hear that because I, as a “normal” theme developer, am pretty sure that I could learn very much if I could take a look inside such kind of Revolution’s flavored themes.

But I’m thinking a couple of things and I would like to know if I’m wrong (what is highly possible) or not.

Fact: WordPress is released under GPL license and that license means that every software that make use of all or part of WordPress MUST use the same GPL.

Questions, thoughts:

GPL is related to “Free Software” but that “Free” word doesn’t means (necessarily) “free of charge” but (always) free of “freedom”. As far as I know the GPL *just* implies that the user who use a GPL software MUST have access to the source code. So, if you buy a “Premium Theme” (paying for it) and you have full access to the source code and you can fully modify it, the theme developer *is* honoring the GPL at all.

And, what if… the theme developer builds his own set of queries, caches, template tags and everything he needs for the theme to work? He won’t use anything of WordPress as software for the theme itself (the theme, with or without GPL must be taken as software too). In fact, wordPress will be using the theme… isn’t it? Could the developer use a different license than GPL in this case?

Anyway, I’m happy and expecting the new set of GPL Rev’ Themes.

I wish you the best, Brian!! (and Jason too )

I wish all WP themes to be free when WP itself is free

You’ve certainly given the rest of us lots to think about

The reason for my question above is to generate conversation on the topic of building a business around WordPress and yet still aligning the foundation of that business with the Open Source model.

Just curious about the model more than anything.

Is it smarter business model to “give away the premium theme and charge for support” vs. “charge for the theme and give free support”?

Certainly Brian’s move indicates this maybe the case.

The other thing to think about is how this fits with selling themes/plugins to the WordPress community.

Does this mean that people who are able to build a business producing and selling high end products to WordPress users are looked down upon?

Thoughts anyone?