There were some plugins that promote copy-protection services that are built to inhibit fair-use… well, I don’t support this scheme because, these schemes are built to make your plugins susceptible to malware. But some companies has violated WordPress’s GPL requirements for people who wanted to reuse GPL-based software. Many people has experienced some issues with these plugins that are still lurking inside WordPress’s plugin directory and repository. Some users has flagged these plugins for abuse of the GPL requirements, but these plugins has been reuploaded again.
This is the part when software wars has started! These open-source software developers has concorred the plugins directory,–after these plugins has been first published. Along came proprietary plugins… WordPress’s worst enemies! These enemies has been lurking for years, and none of these greedy software developers hasn’t been brought to light,–due to them hiding for a long time. Disguising their licenses,–making them look like their open-source. This is a trap for your website to be infected with malware, and other dangerous codes.
This is the reason why proprietary closed-source software is NOT allowed to be uploaded to the plugins directory:
WordPress is an open-source software that is built by our everyday community around the world. Since WordPress heavily relies on a GPL license model to keep their software free of charge, free of license keys, free of copy-protection, and reusable. All plugins should be licensed under a GPL license because, that enables anyone to modify the plugin itself, or adapt it as a new plugin,–based-on a plugin that has the code what a developer of a plugin has been inspired by this plugin in question.
If you were implementing copy-protection on your plugin, and you scrambled your code… your plugin will be flagged for malware,–resulting a removal of your plugin. That’s when proprietary software developers has been driven away from the WordPress plugins directory,–causing them to run their own plugins directory on their own website, or use hosted solutions to host their proprietary plugins that require license keys to activate, API keys, and strict ULAs.
Commercial plugins with activation requirements should NOT be submitted because, that encourages anyone to be controled by you, and your company,–and also avade privacy of others.
Most free plugins has a “Donate” button that enable users to donate to the plugin. Paypal buttons are the known buttons used by many plugin developers who build plugins that are designed to do anything with WordPress,–free of charge.
If you uploaded a plugin that enables copy-protection on WordPress sites; you are silencing fair-use. The Free Software Foundation has condemned use of these schemes as waste of money, and infringes the customer’s freedom of software usage. And these software activists has been boycotting corporations for relying on DRM and other schemes.
If you were planning on writing commercial plugins; run your own plugin directory. If your plugins that rely on DRM is found on WordPress plugins page; your plugins will be removed, and you won’t be able to upload new plugins.
Nobody likes these controversial license keys that are too difficult to keep track of. These keys can be left missing after you downloaded these programs,–causing them NOT to work. This is the known issue for the people who were unbanked, on fixed income, disabled, and more.
The following plugins are alternatives to commercial plugins what you’re using everyday below:
- Advert – This is an alternative to OIO Publisher. It does have PayPal integration, and custom payment gateways what you can use.
What You Should Do
Don’t do any business with software vendors who vend proprietary plugins that require license keys to activate these programs.
Don’t patronize commercial theme vendors’ websites.
Always choose plugins from the WordPress plugins directory.
If you see plugins that promote copy-protection schemes… don’t install it! Report it to the team,–so they can take action.
Think before creating your first plugin.