GPL License And WordPress Policy
WebTechGlobal respects the GPL License and we are increasing our use of it within WordPress projects. Plugins and themes provided by WebTechGlobal Ltd will be published with the GPL License where possible. However where we develop advanced plugins or themes that require greater support than most plugins we will request a fee. On paying WebTechGlobal Ltd for php software written by us, you are paying for actual investment already made by us. Payment is considered as donation, you get unlimited upgrades to the software obtained, we cannot provide the software on the WordPress website in order to protect innovation the belongs to us. Without our investment, expertise and effort such plugins or themes would not exist. We will also compete against other products on the market by offering competitive prices and so you will find where we charge for a particular type of plugin or theme, others are doing the same. If no other paid products exist for a plugin we release then we will fully comply with the GPL License as normal.
The GPL License allowed WordPress to be the success that it is and without that global success there would be no business opportunity for us. That is something we respect greatly and would like to promote in the way it was intended. We are keen to develop many free solutions for ever product and support the WordPress community. We strongly believe that many people need more support, support that is not of high quality because it is generally free. Forums and blogs can be used to piece solutions together but we find a large number of people do not have the coding knowledge or general internet experiance to perform a lot of tasks.
During 2011 we aim to increase our WordPress activity, support the community more without any fee involved but also continue to sell plugins such as Easy CSV Importer which helps to finance much of our support. Profit is invested in doing just that and we believe those profiting from anything built on the WordPress content management system/blogging platform should invest profits into the community while cover their own costs in order to exist. We have attempted to provide such support during 2010 but low funding leaves us struggling to see things through and help members of the community get the complete blog they desire. This can range from e-commerce websites to unique online services, such sites require extension technical knowledge and experience. So although WordPress itself is under the GPL License we do believe we are correct in charging for a minority of what we offer.
If you would like to help us provide free support by acting as a member of WebTechGlobal Ltd, especially in our forum then please contact us. Help us promote WordPress, the GPL License for standard type plugins or themes, increase the accuracy of WordPress online documentation and create a system where we can complete community members websites with them as a team.