Live GPL or Exploit GPL

In this post, I will talk about the GPL and all its rules and recommendations, not just the rules that may interest me, as many people do who wave the flag of GPL freedom. I have read too many times that selling software that you did not develop has nothing to do with the ethics or values of each person; that is a completely biased view of the GPL. You can sell and have values, and sell and be more brazen than honest; it’s simply the approach you take.

To begin with, I have been living the GPL for over 18 years, and I said I live it, not that I live off the GPL, because that’s how it is. I give back to the tools I use in one way or another constantly. Sometimes I do it by translating, other times by fixing bugs, other times by releasing free plugins that are in the repository, even in the month when I have some extra hours from Premium plugins, I improve my free plugins, or even create new ones (which hardly ever happens anymore, rather the opposite).

I have managed to run a project that several tens of thousands of people used, very important sites around the world, including highly prestigious universities worldwide, in which I invested fixed expenses in servers of 800-900€/month (until SiteGround started sponsoring the servers, which I will always be grateful for), and that added to all the development hours I put in, plus the support and maintenance hours during the 7 years it was running, the “real” money invested + the hours spent that I did not dedicate to making money doing other things, would be around half a million euros (yes, 500,000€). But if we only look at the money physically paid (because many people think that one’s work has no value), we have 7 years, times 12 months, times 800€ which gives a cost just in servers of 67,200€. My intention was for the project to live off donations. Can you guess how much money was donated to the project during all that time? Well, direct donations from people, 100€, and after a collection, 2,000 more. I’m talking about WangGuard, perhaps the best anti-splog at that time (or so said the hundreds of posts written about it in all countries of the world). In the end, I closed it for other reasons that have nothing to do with maintenance and that are irrelevant at this moment.  Within the project, I used external libraries that helped me a lot. I set a predefined monthly payment of 25€ to their donation accounts during all the months I used it, more than 2,100€ in donations to GPL projects that I used.

This entire introduction is for those who accuse me of not knowing what the GPL is and where I got involved; it is you who have no idea of my way of acting, what I have done, or what I dedicate myself to, and if you keep reading, you will surely realize that the GPL is not just a set of rules that one interprets literally like a bible with an arm raised; it is something much deeper, and they themselves explain it, but everyone pushes it aside because “it is no longer interesting.”

And now let’s get to the GPL, because that’s what the topic is about.

Basically, there are two ways to fund GPL projects: one is through direct funding, whether through donations or putting in human capital, and the other is through the sale of licenses. If neither exists, the project dies. The territory of premium plugins is the second case, the sale of licenses that grant rights to something, and this finances its evolution. If there are no sales, the project is abandoned.

I contribute in many ways to GPL projects, whether in a human way (development) or by putting in money (buying licenses or donating directly).

For example, the vast majority of companies that work with WordPress (and are responsible), such as hosting companies (like SiteGround), companies (like HumanMade or Automattic), prestigious plugin developers (like Yoast or Pippin Plugins), and all these are a small example, have employees working directly on the WordPress Core; yes, they have hired employees or freelancers who they pay solely and exclusively to make WordPress bigger, which is what I do on a smaller scale, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is the GPL, giving back to what helps you in some way part of what it gives you.

The precursors and creators of the GPL were the “Hippies” of development. They could not fathom that someone would break the philosophy of the game; if you wanted to work with GPL, you had to live the GPL. That is, anything you do should never harm the project; it is to improve it. If what you do harms or can harm the project, you are doing something wrong, even if the GPL states that the action is correct; it is likely that you have not grasped the essence or philosophy.

Someone has even told me that they take X, add it to a larger project, and sell it for 300,000€. Yes, that is totally correct. But to be fair to the GPL and follow its philosophy, you should have someone working on that library that is indispensable for you to earn those 300,000€ or account for what part of the project that library represents and make a donation of the percentage of profits. That would be true GPL, giving back to the project part of what it gives you, not using what others have created and profiting. Have you never seen the donate button? Have you ever pressed it? This is what people turn a blind eye to; they only focus on the “freedom of,” which I repeat was created by “hippies” who could not fathom that someone would not do it because they thought only other “hippies” would join the GPL.

Since people have not wanted to accept this for some time now, just look at the fortune I made with WangGuard; many of us have turned to the path of premium plugins, that is, “mandatory donations” to help with maintenance and continuous development, which is not a sale to live better. Everything went well until sites started appearing (and increasingly more) that offer hundreds, even thousands of premium plugins for a subscription fee, or for a payment lower than what the developer sells it for.

And again, we are back to the partial use of a rule. The GPL states exactly:

Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program?
Yes. The GPL authorizes anyone to do so. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in a particular situation, there is no limit to the price you can set. (That exception is the written offer to provide the source code, which must accompany the binaries when they are distributed without their source code.)

Well, it is clear that the GPL allows selling; what is the problem? The problem is that no one follows the link in “right to sell copies.” If one follows it, although it goes beyond the literal “rule,” we can see that, among the extensive explanation of the freedom to sell, there is this other:

The free software is a community project, and everyone who depends on the project should seek ways to contribute to building the community. For a distributor, the way to do this is to donate part of the profit to the Free Software Foundation or to some other free software development project. By financing development, you can improve the world of free software.
Distributing free software is an opportunity to obtain funds for development. Don’t waste it!
To contribute with money, it is necessary to earn money. If you set a price too low, you will have nothing left to contribute to development.

Well, it seems that although it allows selling the software developed by others, the philosophy or background (although it does not say it directly) is not that one makes money, but to make money in order to donate, whether all or partially. As I have said before, the purpose of all the rules is to make the software bigger, not to destroy it. If the rule had been thought out so that some developed and others took all the money, it would be a destructive rule in itself.

Basically, there are rules in the GPL, but whenever you are going to apply one of them, you must ask yourself, does this benefit the project in any way? Yes or no. If yes, go ahead; if no, you have a moral obligation to the GPL to look for ways to give back to it.

Any business selling plugins developed by other people. No matter how much it is GPL, it does not mean they are doing the right thing if they do it for their own and sole benefit. Another thing is that a percentage (and I’m not talking about pocket change) goes back to the developers so they can continue with the development, because if not, they will be responsible for the disappearance of the project. The problem with some business models is how they return part of the profits to 1,500 plugins/developers if it is a ridiculous subscription (but I will give you a solution at the end, don’t despair if you already have Pepito Grillo behind your ear).

The GPL lives on giving and receiving; if you receive thanks to the GPL, you must give to the GPL (give back). If you receive from the GPL and do not give back to the GPL, you do not use/believe/build on the GPL, you take advantage of the GPL and its basic rules, not its spirit and essence, and therefore, do not make money using GPL rules as an excuse, because it is not like that; you have manipulated them to your benefit and not for the benefit of the GPL.

And so this is the reason for buying licenses from developers, because in any other place you buy the plugin, it will not be contributing anything to the project, and if those sites sell it cheaper than the developer, what they cause is that the developer does not have money to develop that tool that you need so much, you like, and that no one else offers you. What you are doing is biting the hand that feeds you, and in the end, there will be no hand left, and you will be left without a tool. But I’ll tell you a secret; there is the sharing rule. Are you 5 friends or acquaintances who need an 80€ plugin? Well, you buy it together. Only one of the sites may receive support, but it probably won’t be a serious problem. Logically, I said 5 friends; I did not say a buying club that buys one license and uses it on 100, 1,000, 100,000 sites. Is it allowed by the rules? Yes, but that is destructive for the software, so those 100,000 sites may be left without that magnificent tool in a year due to lack of funding for the project. And yes, it is neither ethical nor moral, because it does not contravene the rule, but it does contravene its spirit, and that is what many do not find convenient to say, know, or understand.

To personalize it a bit, I have been developing my Redsys plugin for 7 years, more or less, between development, refactorings, research, etc., the cost already amounts to about 90,000€; I repeat, it is 7 years of continuous development, with a new update approximately every 2 weeks. The selling cost is about $80, of which I take about $48, which, after conversion, is about 40€. All these are round numbers. If we apply this in hours, it means that at a development cost of 60€/h, it does not even reach one hour, and even if the cost were 45€/h, it would still not reach. For it to be worth my while to develop for an hour, I must sell at least 2. With that, I would have enough to develop for an hour and a bit.

I can assure you that every € I earn with the plugin, I reinvest in development hours (you just have to look at the changelog to see its continuous evolution), and I am saying development hours; the hours I give support are “free,” logically the people who acquire the license do so precisely for the support and updates, that’s why I put it in quotes, because it’s not that they haven’t paid for it; I am the one who mentally does not want to invest the money they pay in support (taking it for granted) and I invest every euro in time in development. I simply do it because I love developing; I have a restless mind that loves to create and provide solutions, even to problems that people don’t even know they have. I walk down the street all day jotting down flashes of ideas that come to me and writing them down to implement them (mini eureka moments). If I were to invest the money purely in support, I can assure you that very few updates would come out at this moment. There are ideas that I love, but I cannot implement them due to the time they would take me.

What happens? Well, it’s quite simple. In recent years, plugin resale sites with lower prices have become popular, or directly through subscriptions, and logically they do not contribute to the project as is the spirit of the GPL; that said, the rule that they can sell it is clear. Well, if this continues, I will have to dedicate more time to third-party projects than to my own, which will make us all lose (custom projects that will not be worth 80€ like a simple premium plugin will be worth 30,000€ because you will have to ask someone specifically for it). But not only me, all developers who create free software.

Now do you understand why it is such a bad idea to think that it is better to buy the plugin somewhere else that is cheaper?

After truly reading everything I have put, would you really dare to say that the GPL allows me to sell the developments of others at a lower price? The GPL recommends that you sell if you are going to donate totally or partially to be able to contribute financially, and if you do not do it this way, you will end up with the project, and no, it is not GPL no matter how much you want to sell it that way.

Do you want to resell plugins and have a 100% GPL-friendly business with the developer? Well, it’s not that difficult; it’s just that people always take the easy but destructive path.

Create a plugin buying club, buy a plugin, let’s say mine from Redsys. (70€), now sell it for more, for example, at 100€, which gives you a difference of 30€, remember that I earned about 40€, so you would earn a little less than me for doing nothing. But there is a difference; you are going to sell it in packages for, say, 5 people, meaning that each license you buy, you resell it divided among 5 people. That means the cost for each person will be 20€.

Doesn’t that seem like an impressive and at the same time sustainable business? You do not harm the developer; they will earn less, yes, but there are many numbers that globally sell more, you contribute part of your profits continuously by buying licenses that you will resell among 5 people and ensure the future of the projects that give you money. And this is a 100% GPL business, not like everything out there that many strive to whitewash.

If you really want to maintain the free software ecosystem, you must care for it and nurture it. If you see a site that sells plugins, ask them what the developer gets from the sales they make. Shall we bet on what they will answer?

If you have made it this far, I am very grateful. I would be even more grateful if someone (friend, acquaintance, client, or family) tells you that there is nothing wrong with selling the software developed by someone else (keeping it all for themselves), or buying from that site that is cheaper, or downloading it from who knows where since it is allowed by the GPL, you refer them to this post, because I hope I have been able to convey to you that it is a distortion of the spirit of the GPL and is not sustainable at all; it is destructive in itself and lacking in ethics, no matter how much some insist that ethics has nothing to do with it.

Thank you very much.

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