Forks and Copies  ## Metadata - Author: [[Make WordPress Plugins]] - Full Title: Forks and Copies - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#WordPress, #GPL, #PluginReview, #Forks, #PluginPolicy, #CommunityGovernance] Author: [Make WordPress Plugins] Source: [Make WordPress Plugins Blog] Reference: [https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/08/26/forks-and-copies](https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/08/26/forks-and-copies) date created: 2024-11-27 15:45 --- # Title: Forks and Copies: WordPress Plugin Policy ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: This post clarifies WordPress.org’s plugin policy regarding forks and identical copies. It emphasizes that while GPL licenses permit forking, hosted plugins must demonstrate substantial changes beyond simple rebranding or function renaming. The Plugin Review Team enforces guidelines to prevent duplicates and ensure proper attribution while fostering innovation. --- ## 📖 Main Content: ### 🗒️ Notes: - **Policy Overview**: - Forking is allowed under GPL but must meet WordPress.org’s “substantial change” requirement. - Direct copies without significant changes or attribution are rejected. - Examples of acceptable changes: - Adding/removing features. - Code modernization or cleanup. - Differentiating functionalities. - **Plugin Review Process**: - All plugins are reviewed to detect duplicates. - Tools like diff comparisons assess changes between the original and the fork. - If violations occur: - Original developers may be contacted. - Duplicates are removed unless they meet substantial change criteria. - **Reporting Duplicates**: - Users can report suspected copies to [email protected]. - Provide links and context to streamline the review process. - **Developer Guidance**: - Fork creators must retain original attributions and copyrights. - Surface-level changes (e.g., renaming functions) are insufficient. - **Challenges with External Plugins**: - Reporting issues with non-hosted plugins requires original developers to engage with WordPress.org. - Barriers include unresponsive support from premium plugin developers. --- ## 📖 References: - [Make WordPress Plugins Blog](https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/08/26/forks-and-copies) --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Original**: "We don’t want to have 100 plugins that are the same, save the credits." **Paraphrased**: "Our goal is to avoid hosting numerous plugins that only differ in their credit lines." 2. **Original**: "If you’re the original developer, email us a copy of your plugin (we promise not to steal it)..." **Paraphrased**: "Original developers should email us their plugin for comparison, assuring that their work won’t be misused." --- ## 📰 Newsletter: 🎉 **WordPress Plugin Policies Update**: Ever wondered how WordPress handles plugin forks? The latest insights from the Plugin Review Team explain it all: forks must show meaningful changes, not just rebranding. Learn how these policies ensure innovation and fairness in the ecosystem. Details: [Read More](https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/08/26/forks-and-copies). --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Advocate for clearer definitions of "substantial change" to guide developers. - Raise awareness about reporting processes to prevent duplicate plugins. - Promote transparency in plugin review workflows for community trust. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Strengthening fork requirements will reduce duplicate plugins on WordPress.org. - Streamlining reporting mechanisms could improve response times and accuracy. --- ## 📊 Methodology: - Analyze plugin approval and rejection trends to identify common issues. - Conduct surveys of plugin developers to assess awareness of forking guidelines. --- ## ❓ Questions: 1. How can WordPress.org enforce attribution compliance effectively? 2. Should external plugin developers have a formal pathway to address duplicate reports? --- ## 🔮 Future Research: - Evaluate how fork policies influence plugin innovation and competition. - Explore user satisfaction with WordPress.org's reporting mechanisms. --- ## 💡 Implications: - Improved policies may enhance developer accountability. - Clearer processes could strengthen trust within the WordPress ecosystem. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - **Visual**: Include flowcharts of plugin review processes. - **Verbal**: Enhance with case studies of acceptable forks. - **Logical**: Use data on duplicate plugin rejection rates to highlight trends. --- ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Improve**: Add alt-text to examples of acceptable vs. unacceptable forks. - **Improve**: Ensure policy documentation is mobile-friendly and screen-reader compatible. --- ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment: - **Cultural Relevance**: Consider diverse use cases for plugins globally. - **Neurodiversity Support**: Simplify policy language for clarity and accessibility. --- ## ✅ Logical Validity: - **Strength**: Clear reasoning supports the need for substantial changes in forks. - **Weakness**: The post could provide more concrete examples to reduce ambiguity. --- ## 🔍 DARVO Analysis: 1. **Deny**: The policy avoids denying responsibility, emphasizing fairness. 2. **Attack**: No evidence of aggressive responses to reporters or developers. 3. **Reverse Victim**: Maintains objectivity without framing developers as adversaries. --- ## 🔍 SEO Evaluation: - **Keywords**: "WordPress plugin policy," "plugin forks," "GPL compliance." - **Meta Description**: Focuses on explaining WordPress.org’s plugin fork guidelines. - **Internal Links**: Links to related plugin policies and reporting procedures. --- ## 🎯 Conclusion: WordPress.org's plugin policy ensures fair practices by mandating substantial changes for forks. Developers and users alike benefit from robust guidelines, fostering innovation and accountability in the ecosystem. - Document Tags: [[acf]] [[fork]] [[open source]] [[plugin directory]] [[scf]] [[wordpress]] [[wpdrama]] - Summary: This has come up recently. What happens when someone submits a plugin that’s a copy of another? The tl;dr here is this: Please email us at [email protected] if you find someone has slippe… - URL: https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/08/26/forks-and-copies/ This has come up recently. What happens when someone submits a plugin that’s a copy of another? The tl;dr here is this: Please email us at `[email protected]` if you find someone has slipped an uncredited fork or identical copy of another plugin into the repository. In general, we spot these before they ever get published. We rejected 10s of plugins a month for being identical copies. That said, we also approve double that for being legitimate forks. While the GPL and it’s compatible licenses allow for forking, we have an ‘above and beyond’ rule for hosting here, that means your plugin must be a substantial change of the original. We do not allow direct copies of other plugins to be re-listed under somebody else’s name, we allow changed forks. What does that mean? It’s very simple. You have to add new features, remove features, modernize, fix, clean up, or otherwise make a change to the plugin that differentiates it from the original. In rare cases, a simple clean-up will be accepted, but normally we try to get a hold of the original authors and have the fixes folded in to the original plugin. If you have a fork, we require you to retain all credit and/or copyright information. That’s all well and good. What happens when we miss one? Contact us. Email us at `[email protected]` and tell us “Plugin A is a copy of Plugin B.” If both plugins are on the WordPress.org repository, provide links — there are 45k plugins in our repository, no links means it takes us an extra email or three to sort out which plugin you were talking about. Anyone can report this, though we ask you be reasonable and not accusatory. We are real humans who will read your emails. Treat us like that 🙂 We’ll open up both plugins, the current versions and the originals, and run a diff between them to see what’s different. If it’s just renaming plugin functions, we’re going to close the copy. If it’s clearly a full rewrite, with moving functions to namespaces etc, we’re likely to keep both versions open. A full modernized rewrite *is* a legit fork. We will go back and ask them to put credits and copyright info back in, but rarely more. If the original plugin is *NOT* hosted on WordPress.org, then it’s more complicated because we need to see them to compare. This means if you, as a user, see a copy of a premium plugin, you need to ask the *original developers* to contact us. Why? Well, have you ever tried, as a non-paying customer, to contact some of these folks? It’s an uphill battle. It’s worse when they’re hosted on places which protect their email addresses. That’s great, we totally get why you do that, but we have no way to contact them. Many times we’ve reached out and gotten auto-replies that take weeks to get back to us with a real human. If you’re the original developer, email us a copy of your plugin (we promise not to steal it) and if you can, explain how you know it’s a copy and not a fork. But whatever you do, please, please, please, don’t take all this to the forums and post complaints that the forked plugin authors are evil or what have you. That doesn’t make for a happy community. Report things properly. Let us know. We’ll take the angry hit from them for you. If you’ve written a fork or a copy? Please make sure you’re really making a fork! Just slapping on your name and changing function names isn’t enough of a fork for us to host it here. We don’t want to have 100 plugins that are the same, save the credits. We want to have plugins that do different things. Edit: *All questions about the GPL-100% rule and how it applies to WORDCAMPS needs to be asked of the <https://make.wordpress.org/community/> team – All those comments are being deleted for derailing the topic here.* [#policy](https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/tag/policy/), Forks and Copies, Make WordPress Plugins, 01jdjqq9gc3fmmhwf3xvqqjkpg.