Apply licensing to source code

[ghost]

#237 took the licensing part way there, but missed a couple of important points on making this code usable to the public.

To understand how to apply the GPL to your source code please see the following:
https://choosealicense.com/licenses/gpl-2.0/

Also, it may be wise to consider one of the other licenses, such as GPL-3.0, LGPL or AGPL as GPL-2, unless applied using +, has some holes in it.

[ghost]

For the sake of clarity:

Note: The Free Software Foundation recommends taking the additional step of adding a boilerplate notice to the top of each file. The boilerplate can be found at the end of the license.

[westonruter]

I added the license via the facility that GitHub provides for adding a license to a project. I chose GPLv2 because it is the license used in WordPress.

[ghost]

Weston. Sorry I should have been less wordy, hence the follow-up comment regarding applying the license. When I originally requested its addition I was hoping to leverage wp-tools but got blocked due to some wp-dev-lib files used in their repo used without the GPL headers applied before licensing was issued for this toolkit.

Here's the related issue applying the GPL license will allow them to resolve: gedex/wp-tools#35

[ghost]

I added the license via the facility that GitHub provides for adding a license to a project. I chose GPLv2 because it is the license used in WordPress.

Given most of these tools will be used in applications outside of WordPress, but to create things for WordPress, it may be preferable to change to an MIT or ISC license type, example:

https://github.com/antecedent/patchwork/blob/master/Patchwork.php#L3-L7

Tools like wp-dev-lib can then be separated from the Plugins or Themes they're used to produce by Apps, and those Apps may maintain separate licensing at their discretion while creating a GPL-licensed product so as to satisfy the WordPress gods, skip the semi-egregious GPL header application requirements and conform with most of the existing libs being produced by the open source community today (which is ISC, the default setting when a new NPM module is created).

Switching licenses would be my firm recommendation should you choose to approach #241 to make these tools more useful to the general public, and will help stymie license proliferation.

Please see comfusion/hyperdrive#41 for some relevant licensing discussion at the plugin level.

---

In context: Tools/Libs (MIT/ISC) <- Apps (Choose A License) -> Plugin/Theme ("[A]GPL-[2|3].0" with + or or later or or any later version, or version number omitted, depending on specific language used and as defined by the terms of the individual GNU GPL or GNU AGPL license applied).

---

Resources:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Q&A/Community Discussion:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/search?q=license

[ghost]

Update. GNU AGPL licenses, a stronger copyleft license than the GPLv3, should be fine for use in WordPress themes and plugins. If the foundation tries and block them please direct attention here:
https://github.com/comfusion/hyperdrive/issues/41#issuecomment-304381094

I have lines out to both the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center whom I will use to validate my finding for the benefit of openness and progressive nature of all FOSS plugins and themes created for and used in WordPress.

/cc @ntwb

[ntwb]

As I stated in the issue in your repo @JHabdas I wrote that it was incredibly impolite to ping people in your issues who have nothing to do with your project, you took it upon yourself to delete that comment and email me the following reason:

"I removed your comment in my repo because it was not conducive to discussion."

I'm writing this here because you cannot delete this comment.

Please do not ping me again in any of your issues, this goes for pinging any other WordPress contributor who is not involved in your project directly.

As to the specifics of the issue here for the wp-dev-lib repo, a license has been added and the issue is closed, now leave it alone.