Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on the internet. All of this post is speculation by a blogger.
WordPress, everyone’s favorite blogging platform, is released under the GNU GPL, an open source software license. The GPL is notable in that it not only requires that source code be made available, but that it stipulates that anyone may modify and redistribute that source code as long as the derivative works are also licensed under the GPL.
Is a theme integrated into WordPress closely enough that it’s required to be licensed under the GPL? This morning, Matt Mullenweg (creator of WordPress) posted a piece stating the “official” view that WordPress themes must be GPL.
How does this play with the premium (read: $$$) themes which are available for WordPress? I’m a big fan of Thesis (so much of a fan that I offer up that affiliate link), but a GPL-ed theme would wipe out the basic revenue model of “pay to use the theme.” There would still be opportunity for payment for services such as the excellent Thesis support forums, but the basic pay-to-use notion would be gone, since the code would be freely available from any number of sources.
I decided to pop the question of Thesis’ future to Chris Pearson (@pearsonified), the man behind DIYthemes which is the company that releases Thesis:
ahockley: Curious to see how this affects some premium themes, namely Thesis: http://bit.ly/txqE0 @pearsonified
pearsonified: @ahockley It won’t affect Thesis at all.
ahockley: @pearsonified Thanks for the reply… but… Thesis isn’t GPL, is it?
pearsonified: No
ahockley: @pearsonified So if Automattic says themes need to be GPL, and Thesis isn’t GPL, how does this not affect Thesis? Connect the dots for me
pearsonified: @ahockley Automattic says that, but they cannot and will not enforce it. Therefore, DIYthemes will continue to operate as normal.
Interesting way of handling the situation… sounds like Pearson isn’t planning to change his operation unless forced, and he’s confident that Automattic won’t press the issue.
Photo by stopnlook, used under Creative Commons licensing
This post was originally published in June 2009 following the launch of Social Photo Talk. It has been updated with additional supporting links as part of a presentation I gave at WordCamp Seattle titled “After Launching a Couple Dozen Blogs, I Figured Out how to Do it Right.” Jump to the bottom of this post to watch that video.
Last month I launched Social Photo Talk, a new blog powered by WordPress. I kept track of the steps as I put the site together. This is not a comprehensive guide, but a rough list of the various tasks that I took care of in the preparation and launch of the site. As I’ve launched a variety of blogs for a variety of purposes, I’ve learned a few lessons. This list of my practices has a couple simple goals: fully prepare the blog before public launch, and to be ready to accept traffic when the site goes live.
Beginnings
- Purchase domain
- Setup domain on web host (I use A2 Hosting and have been quite happy)
- Install WordPress – I prefer to install WordPress manually instead of using the “one click” installers (such as Fantastico) provided by some web hosts. A manual installation ensures I could control details if I want, plus I’ll know all of the behind the scenes database information usernames, and passwords.
- Install Maintenance Mode and activate – Maintenance Mode is a plugin which presents a (customizable) static page to visitors to your website unless they’re logged in with an administrator account. It can be used to temporarily make your site unavailable during maintenance, or in our case, to prevent access to the site until it is ready for launch.
- Setup user account (and give it admin rights)
- Delete the built-in admin account – As a security precaution, it’s not a bad idea to create a second user account that is an administrator, then delete the built-in admin account. By removing the default admin account, it prevents any malicious attacks that might attempt to use that account for access.
- Activate Akismet
- Go through each Settings panel, update as needed, paying particular attention to permalinks and the discussion (comment) options
- Install Thesis and make it the active theme. That’s an affiliate link
- Install initial plugins:
- Customize the Theme
- Write “About” Page – Every blog should have an “About” page which discusses the company and/or authors. Make it easy for people to contact you… a contact form is quite stuffy and makes visitors jump through hoops. I prefer offering an email address and a phone number.
- Setup sidebar widgets – Lorelle has a great series about WTF Blog Clutter that talks about all sorts of things that can litter ones sidebar. You don’t want to overdo it, but use the sidebar to provide value for your readers in the form of navigation, subscription options, and possibly some relevant advertising.
- subscription options (rss, twitter)
- affiliate/ads
- category archives
- recent comments
- delicious links
- OpenID integration
- Setup analytics (Mint)
- Custom 404 page
- Custom Archives page powered by Clean Archives Reloaded
- Setup Twitter account + avatar
- Favicon
Launching
- Deactivate Maintenance Mode
- Disable Twitter Tools*
- Publish queued posts for initial site content
- Announce Site to the Public
- Re-enable Twitter Tools
- Setup Feedburner (create feed, redirect WordPress) – Feedburner needs a live feed to “burn” your RSS feed. When Maintenance Mode is active, Feedburner can’t hit your feed, so I wait to burn it until just after the site goes live.
- Feedburner email subscription
- Skribit widget
- Vanity/search feeds
* Be sure to disable Twitter Tools while publishing content before you announce the site, lest someone discover it before you’re ready. Once your initial content is on the site, re-enable the plugin before you forget.
Obviously this is a fairly rough list, with some steps being quite vague (like “Customize the theme”), but I wanted to get this online both as a reference for myself and others in the future.
I’m loving Thesis, a premium WordPress theme that I’ve been using since November on this site as well as Hockley Photography. Thesis offers a bunch of really great options for point-and-click configuration through the administration screens, as well as a powerful “hooks” system that makes it easy to write PHP code (in one file) to take care of custom theme alterations that often require editing several different theme files with a “typical” WordPress theme.
Because these theme changes are kept in one customization file, upgrading the theme preserves all of the customizations.
Another big plus is that Thesis features excellent SEO features. Canonical URLs, appropriate meta tags, alt text, management of noindex for archives, and other search-engine-friendly features are all editable via the admin screens. Here’s a real life example of the SEO power of Thesis: last night I attended a photography seminar on the theme of “Exciting Light” led by top-notch photographer David Ziser. If you Google [David Ziser exciting light] you’ll find that my blog posts are the top results for his seminar.
Want to see Thesis in person? Find me at Beer and Blog or Portland’s WordPress User Group or another local event and I’ll show you how it works.
Want to buy Thesis? If you buy Thesis via this link, I’ll get a few dollars and you’ll get a great theme.
