So today was fun, wasn’t it WordPress & Thesis people? In case you missed it, here’s a brief rundown of what happened:

Update: Thesis now sports a shiny new Split license which should appease all you GPL lovers. Can we get some work done now?

1. Bill Erikson sent out a Tweet explaining that WordPress had dropped him as a developer because he suppports Thesis (they feel Thesis violates the GPL).
2. A bored 12-year old in Elbonia injected some malicious code into the Thesis 1.7 and 1.8 Beta releases, so that anyone installing the theme from these downloads got infected. It’s fixed now
3. Matt smacked Chris across the face with a wet fish, suggesting he doesn’t know how to code (how many times has a WordPress site been hacked, Matt?)
4. Chris shouted at Matt for an hour on Mixergy.
5. Matt sounded bored, like he was reading from a script his lawyers prepared.
6. Chris challenged Matt to a duel in the highest court in the land.
7. Matt said he might just do that.
8. Andrew Warner gave up trying to convince (a) Chris to go GPL with Thesis, and (b) Matt to leave Chris alone.
9. #thesiswp trended on Twitter and everybody from me to a dodgy affiliate in Delhi chimed in with an opinion that at the end of the day, doesn’t matter one little bit. Even so:

My thoughts on Thesis vs. WordPress

Chris Pearson has built a product that’s allowed me to build a business. Of course, so has Matt Mullenweg. So both of these guys are kind of a big deal in my life and I don’t like the way the argument is going.

Yes, I agree that Matt has licensed WordPress under the GPL and he staunchly supports that. And yes, I understand that Chris doesn’t like his business being indirectly controlled by WordPress’ illogical (in a traditional business sense) choice of licensing.

But going to court will end in tears for someone, and both business models will be harmed in the process.

What could WordPress do?

They could relax the GPL. Custom theme designers get paid money by their clients to use WordPress’ code on their projects, and you don’t see them releasing the fruits of their labour under the GPL. So how is this different for a premium theme developer?

They could stand by their guns and sue DIYthemes. Maybe they’d win. But if they don’t they’ll be the laughing stock of the Internet.

They could ignore Chris Pearson and Thesis, and focus on making their software so damn good that people no longer have an incentive to buy premium themes, thereby winning the fight with a superior product.

What could Chris Pearson do?

He could carry on as is, and maybe get sued, maybe not. His community (me included) are very loyal and most of us simply don’t care about the GPL. We just want a development framework that makes sense. For me, Thesis does that.

He could develop a competing platform to WordPress; Thesis as a standalone product. Personally I don’t think this would work because the sheer number of WordPress plugins that would need replicating to make the framework commercially viable is staggering.

He could accept the GPL and change the way he does business. This is probably the easiest way out, but Chris is a very opinionated person and has some of the strongest beliefs of any man I’ve ever known. I don’t see this happening unless it makes perfect sense for Thesis. And in Chris’ mind, it doesn’t.

What I’d like to see happen

I’d like every single plugin and theme developer to release their work outside the GPL, and charge money for it. This would instantly get rid of 90% of the crap plugins, themes and add-ons that don’t work and aren’t supported. And it would leave behind a core product offering that is easily robust enough to be used for any Enterprise web project.

I’d like WordPress to charge for their product too. The money they make from sales could be spent on Forum moderators that answer questions in a helpful manner instead of shouting ‘SEARCH THE FUCKING FORUMS, MORON’ every time someone new asks something. DIYthemes has some of the best forum moderators known to man. I dare you to ask a Thesis question on the forums and not get an answer from Godhammer, Girlie or Phil. And if they can’t help, another developer will.

I’d like to see Matt and Chris get in the ring and fight it out. It won’t solve anything but it’ll be fun to watch…

I know a lot of people have opinions on this matter, and I’d like to hear yours.

If I was Barack Obama I’d hire someone to write a killer speech explaining how my new full-time freelance status is great for the country, humanity and the universe in general. Of course I’m not Barack Obama and I can’t afford a speech writer, so I’m going to make this post all about ME instead. I’ll add the word YOU occasionally just so you feel part of the conversation.

Here’s what YOU (clever, huh?) can expect from ME in the coming months:

More Blog entries

To say I’ve neglected this blog is an understatement. I know that when I write high quality posts I get high quality traffic. And new customers. So I’m nailing down a blogging schedule. Mondays you get a feature post (Thesis tutorials, adventures in online marketing, freelancing) and Fridays we’ll have some fun with a round up of the best Thesis stuff I’ve found over the past week.

I’ve also shied away from guest posts in the past because I don’t particularly enjoy writing or criticism, but they’re crucial to growing a community, so I’ll give guest posting a shot once a month, if anyone will have me.

DIYthemes forums participation

What sets Thesis apart from other WordPress frameworks is (a) it’s better than other frameworks, and (b) the DIYthemes forums. I very rarely run into problems on a slicing job that I can’t find an answer to in the forums. I think hope I’ve reached the point where I have something to give back to the Thesis community so I’m going to  try and spend more time helping others figure out their issues. This assumes Godhammer, Girlie and Kristarella don’t beat me to it (how do they type so fast?).

Awesome Thesis skins

With the success of my Osmotic skin for Thesis, I discovered how much fun it is to help people built websites they can launch in a matter of hours. Not to mention I think there’s a decent amount of money to be made. So I’m going to be putting a lot more focus on skin design. I’ve got 3 new skins in various stages of production, with the first set for release on April 5th (and a secret project you’ll hear about in due course).

Better PSD to Thesis services

Without imaginative clients constantly pushing the boundaries of what Thesis can do, I wouldn’t have a business. So I’ve started putting a lot of effort into making my PSD to Thesis slicing services better, faster, more affordable. It’s going to be hard to stay at the top of the slicing pack as more developers jump on the bandwagon but I’m up for the challenge.

And the occasional Thesis theme design

My son goes to Beaver Scouts (Boy Scouts for little kids). The thing that keeps him going back each week is the chance to earn his next badge. Well I want a badge too, which is why I’m now taking on Thesis Theme Design work to earn myself a Doublemule Certification badge. If you’ve got a design project in mind and you like clean, grid based design, then get in touch and let’s talk.

So there you have it. Feedback? Hearty congratulations? Insults? YOU can leave them in the comments or follow me on Twitter.

thumbnail credits

If you’re a Thesis user and you’ve been looking for a premium skin that’s a bit special, allow me introduce you to Osmotic.

Built on Thesis as a clean blog skin, Osmotic has a bunch of added features and loads of prettiness.

And it’s only available to 25 people. That’s right. I’ve always felt that designing a premium skin, then selling 500 copies kind of makes it, un-premium.

So I’ve capped the number of people who can buy a single user license for Osmotic to just 25. Nice!

Of course this means you’re going to have to pay a little bit extra for all this Osmotic goodness. I’ve fixed the price at $99, but to sweeten the deal and stop you all whining about my attempts to plunder your childrens’ inheritances, I’m also throwing in installation of the skin on your Thesis theme. Even nicer!

Anyway, enough banter. Head over to the Osmotic sales page (HINT: you should click the ‘Buy Now’ button while you’re there) to see what features are in store, or take a look at the Osmotic demo I’ve got running on a test server. Then, tell everyone about it because if I don’t manage to sell 25 copies of the skin I WON’T BE MAKING ANY MORE – and my children will need to take to the streets to forage for food & water!

Happy shopping!

I’ve had a couple of people (ok, one person) ask me what tools I use to deliver up PSD to Thesis sites and seen as I can’t be bothered to write a tutorial today, I’ll tell you.

1. Hardware. I use a MacBook Pro 15″ laptop for everything except IE testing. For that I use my wife’s PC (I have no idea what spec it is. It’s a PC, therefore I don’t care).
2. Graphics. Primarily I use Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3. I’m yet to find an argument for upgrading to CS4. Besides, have you seen what it costs?!
3. Code editor. Up until early last year I was a big Dreamweaver fan. But it’s too damn bloated nowadays. So I switched to Coda. Seriously, buy a Mac just to get Coda. It’s that good.
4. FTP. Coda’s built-in FTP client, Transmit, works very nicely but I also run Filezilla, simply because it allows me to transfer stuff while I’m working on other stuff.
5. Browsers. You can’t beat Firefox for web development. Along with the Web developer toolbar and Firebug this is my most important tool of all. However, there are a few people in the world who don’t use Firefox (freaks!), so I test in Safari, Chrome and Opera (and IE6, 7 & 8 on the aforementioned PC).
6. Test server. I have a MAMP installation for testing sites, but I find more and more that I’m developing live on either my own test domains or client domains. It means one less transfer once the project is done, and allows for instant feedback on any work I do. My hosting provider is a UK based company called Xilo and they are absolutely brilliant.
7. Timekeeping & Invoicing. Until recently I didn’t worry about timekeeping, but I found I was losing money on some jobs, so I installed a nice little Mac desktop app called On The Job. It allows me to keep time on projects, break down tasks and raise invoices. Other than Coda, this is the coolest piece of software I own and a true lifesaver.
8. Backups. Most Apple users make use of Time Machine for backups, but I never seem to remember to plug my external drive in. So I opted for a Dropbox account instead. Much simpler.

First up, Happy New Year everyone! I had a New Year’s Resolution list post planned, but seen as I’ve broken most of them already there doesn’t seem to be much point in publishing it.

Instead, take a look at Osmotic, my first Thesis skin for public release.

Osmotic is a clean, minimalist theme skin, based on the 960.gs grid system with the following features:

• Single column or 2-column/3 column hybrid layout
• Thesis drop down menus
• WordPress search box in the navigation bar
• Recent Posts widget with thumbnails and post excerpt
• 3 column widgetized footer

Other than the fixed width structure of the theme, all default Thesis Options and Thesis Design Options can still be used, giving you a fair amount of flexibility to tweak colors, fonts, links and widget placement.

I’ve still got a couple of bugs to iron out, which knowing my current schedule will take at least another week. So expect this skin to be available towards the end of the month.

If you think you may be interested in using Osmotic on your Thesis blog, please let me know and I’ll put you on the ‘list of people to harass‘ as soon as it gets released.

If you’ve got any suggestions/comments/questions/insults, please leave them below. Thanks.

Merry Christmas!

A big thank you to everyone who visited, everyone who took the time to comment or follow me on Twitter, and the biggest thank you of all to everyone who hired me in 2009.

Have a great break. Don’t eat and drink too much and I’ll see you on the Interwebs in 2010.

Dave