Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, downloaded his competitor Wix’s iOS app. It looked eerily familiar, and he confirmed it contains source code stolen from WordPress. He called them out on his blog, getting right to the point in addressing the problem: Your app’s editor is built with stolen code, so your whole app is now in violation of the license.
Wix’s CEO, Avishai Abrahami, responded with a round of non-sequiturs that carefully evade the point that his product is built from source code for which they have not paid. One of his engineers equally misses the point, focusing on the circumstances surrounding the violation, rather than taking responsibility for the theft.
Some will take issue with the use of strong words like “stolen code,” and “theft,” with respect to a GPL violation. But that’s exactly what it is: software has been taken and deployed in Wix’s product, but the price for doing so has not been paid.
Many developers (and CEOs) seem to prefer remaining willfully oblivious to the consequences of using GPL code. They loosely interpret the terms of GPL to suit their own wishes for what they implied:
“It’s
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/13726/the-price-of-gpl
source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/the-price-of-gpl/
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