 So once again, hello everyone and welcome to today's online workshop today's topic is GPL in the WordPress training teams vetting process So I'm Ben and today I have O'Neill and the two of us will be presenting What GPL is and how we use it in the training teams vetting process? So today we'll be looking at first of all what open source is and what free software is The second point what the GPL software license is in general and then third Why the training team looks for GPL adherence when vetting for some roles? And then finally we'll do a bit of a demonstration of how we actually vet applications I'm so you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at how we go about doing that. All right So jumping right in What is open source? So you may have heard of the word before Open source is software with source code that anyone can inspect modify and enhance so Open source is where this the source code the code behind a piece of software is Open and free for anyone to have a look at to change and modify to meet their needs so the opposite of open source is propriety software and When you purchase software from a lot of companies like to install into your computer They used to come a like CD-ROMs or even floppy disk before that this software would have been compiled and So into a machine Into into a format that can only be read by a machine So a human could not look at the code and make changes because it was already compiled and encrypted So that only machines could run the software So that's how different companies protected their software. They would compile it and sell it about open source keeps the code Uncompiled so people can still examine the code and make changes if they want to So WordPress is open source. You can have a look at the source code behind WordPress and It's also free software They also want to take a moment to consider what free software is When we when we talk about free software, especially in open source We are talking about freedom and not necessarily price so as It says here the term free in free open source software refers to freedom not monetary cost so in a sense you could have open source you purchase which is still free because it's Provides freedom to the user Wordpress is free in both price and it provides freedom But today in a couple of our slides will be talking about free software and the freedoms of software So I just want everyone to keep in mind. We're not talking about price when we talk about free. We're talking about freedoms and You can fall more you can find more information about oops about the freedoms of open source On a website called open source.org so I'm going to drop that link in the zoom chat here and you can refer to that later So that is a definition of free software so Looking into more details. There are four freedoms included in free software The first one is the freedom to run the program for any purpose so Free software says you can run the program for anything you can run it for Your personal blog you can run it for a non not for profit organization You can run it for a for-profit organization. You can run it for a business You can run it for any purpose The second freedom is the freedom to study how the program works And change it to make it do what you wish So again, this is opposite to propriety software, which has already Compiled the software and encrypted it so you can't really Study it or change it free software gives you the freedom to study and change it So when we provide free software to other people they can change it to match their needs The third freedom is the freedom to redistribute the software so They can then share that software with their friends and they can even make Modifications and then share those modified versions with other people which is the fourth freedom the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to other people So before freedoms are the freedom to run the program freedom to change the program the freedom to redistribute the program and Finally, the troops the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to other people And we'll be looking at these four freedoms In more detail or specifically to the WordPress project in further slides here And again, I have another link here For more information about free software and open source You can have a look at the GNU license Website and they give a bit more information about the freedoms provided in free software So let me just pause there quickly. Are there any questions so far? We've been talking about very general concepts of open source and freedom. We'll dive into WordPress specific things next Are there anything any questions or anything you want clarified? No, we won't thank you. All right Well, so what does this mean for WordPress specifically? So the WordPress project we also The WordPress project also has these four freedoms connected to its software the WordPress software is licensed under the general public license which is often shortened to GPL and specifically The GPL states this WordPress can be run by anyone for any purpose Anyone can study any aspect of the WordPress code WordPress can be downloaded and shared with and by anyone and Finally, anyone can download and modify WordPress and distribute modified copies So this is basically the four freedoms we talked about before But as it applies to the WordPress project now The GP Sorry, the GPL license the general public license dates that any software So any modified software or any derivative software of a GPL license software Must also carry the GPL license So you can download WordPress. You can modify WordPress. You can redistribute WordPress But when you redistribute WordPress, you must also add the GPL license to that redistributed version of WordPress that is the old In my mind the only requirement that comes with the GPL license the requirement to add the GPL license to any modified versions of the original software So that means you can't download WordPress make changes and then sell that changed version of WordPress to a limited number of people like Your software has to be so you can't sell like a compiled version of that WordPress your software your modified version also has to be Available for anybody to write it also has to be Studyable by anybody and it needs to be able to be redistributed by other people So the GPL license talks about the modified versions of WordPress, but it also talks about the derivative works So anything that needs WordPress to run must also carry the GPL license so if you have Extra code that sort of connects to WordPress and these extra pieces of code need WordPress in order to run and Then these extra pieces of code should also carry the GPL license Which is the freedom to run it for any purpose study it and download it and share it and share modified versions In for WordPress specifically these derivative works these extra add-ons are called plugins and themes So for the WordPress project Plug-in authors and theme authors are asked to Make their plugins and themes available with the same freedoms Attached to the main WordPress software because plugins and things need WordPress in order to work Plug-ins and themes also should carry the GPL freedoms So talking a bit more detail. What is the GPL? The GPL is I'm reading some notes here. So if I if I'm looking down like this, please forgive me Let's see. So the GPL license was originally written in 1989 by the free software foundation and It is the founding license for open source software So The GPL was created so that Rather than restricting distribution It allows people to distribute their code So let me read the GPL was set to make it so that source code would be distributed more It would be shared more amongst people and improved more So let's see propriety software, which doesn't carry the freedoms is Created by usually one one company and their developers and they're the only people who can make changes and updates and They choose who they want to sell it to GPL takes a totally different approach and says little share our software little make it better together and It was the one of the founding philosophies of the open source concepts in the world So the GPL states if you take a piece of software that's licensed under GPL and create a derivative work of it That derivative work must also be licensed with GPL This is important because if you don't honor the GPL the license to use the source program Will terminate and it would breach the terms of usage So if you were to create a derivative work that isn't licensed with GPL Then you'd actually be breaking the terms and conditions you signed up to when using the original GPL license And this means people are free to fork License software So when you fork software you take a copy of something and you make modifications So the main software keeps on developing And gets updates and you make and you sort of branch off from that And so you can add your own updates and your own features to this forked piece of software and the GPL actually protects this because People are allowed to make modifications and then share their modifications So GPL makes forking software Possible as long as the forked software also carries the GPL license a Copy of the GPL license is actually included with every WordPress installation You may not have ever looked in the source code to find the license before But we also have the text you can also have a look at the text of the GPL license at this link I've just added to the zoom chat Alright, so that's that's a little background and technical information about the GPL Any questions so far hopefully I haven't made it too confusing here Rico, okay What does the whole licensing issue look like in terms of teaching? Is there anything to consider? How does it look when the school pays me to produce teaching materials? Can I also mention the school as a sponsor in videos and documentation, etc? Okay, that's a good point because We talk about Paid Paid features and the GPL license in a few more slides So let me hold that question for just a few more slides and we'll get to that GPL a quick answer is GPL doesn't prohibit Telling things like you can make money off GPL licensed software But there are some things to take in consideration, so we'll get to that question in just a moment But thank you for asking that All right, so WordPress is licensed under GPL which protects for freedoms and We talked about how derivative works must also carry the GPL license and carry the same for freedoms So now we're going to narrow in further and look at plugins and themes So WordPress has plugins and themes. What how does GPL apply to plugins and things? So again, we have four freedoms Number one a plugin or thing can be used by anyone for any purpose so if if somebody is Distributing a plug-in and saying this can only be used by schools Then they're actually restricting this first freedom The GPL says plug-in to things can be used by anyone so we can't they shouldn't restrict who is allowed to use it The second freedom anyone can study any aspect of the plugin theme and code so Plug-ins and themes aren't compiled when they're distributed their source code is open and anybody can study them Thirdly a plug-in or thing can be downloaded and shared with and by anyone so Technically you could Ask a fee to distribute a plug-in to somebody But you can't restrict that person from distributing it further so a Plug-in or thing you distribute can then be downloaded and shared with anyone so you can't restrict How that is redistributed beyond that person you gave it to a Number four anyone can download and modify the plug-in theme and distribute modified copies Again, so plug-ins and themes Anybody can take that modify the code and then share that modified version with other people as well So these are the fourth freedoms as they apply to plugins and themes But in the WordPress ecosystem, you will see there are paid plugins and themes so this is This is why the free software the free in free software is Referring to freedoms and not price because you can have paid for free software So let's have a look at this Play paid plugins and themes can also be GPO compliant if they don't conflict with the fourth freedoms so the important thing is that The the money that is exchanged Isn't restricting the four freedoms we talked about before So for example Some plugins offer Support as part of a subscription. So once you download the plug-in There's an option for you to pay for a year of support This is this is GPO compliant because they're not The plug-in itself isn't restricted you can look at the plug-in you can study the plug-in you can redistribute the plug-in What you are paying for is for the customer service people who are going to respond to your questions So your payment has nothing to do with the freedoms of the software It is for the subscription with that company who are going to be supporting you over the next year So that sort of setup is GPO compliant However, sometimes when you do a Google search you may find plugins or things that say This can only be used on X number of sites and This is not GPO compliant because one of the freedoms of GPO is for you to redistribute the code and so you should have the freedom to Install the code on other sites or other Any number of sites? So if they are restricting the number of sites it can be used on then that is not GPO compliant So let me pause then come to your question recall So you said what does the whole licensing issue look like in terms of teaching? Is there anything to consider? How does it look when the school pays me to produce teaching materials? So when the school pays you for teaching materials They're paying you for your time you invested in creating the curriculum the time you spent teaching it And so That payment has nothing to do with the freedom of the WordPress software you're using in your classes So It is totally acceptable to receive that payment for your teaching And it doesn't conflict with the GPO life and sin And then says can I also mention that schools as a sponsor in videos and documents, etc Yes, so in your personal like videos and documents you can mention these schools are financing your work That is totally okay And I see you just dropped the question here, which isn't English But there are purchase plugins that you can only install on X sites Yes, so WordPress That plugins and themes are gpl compliant But when you look in the world There are plugins and themes that aren't gpl compliant. So they aren't Honoring the four freedoms that should be included in plugins and themes And that is why there is a vetting process for some roles in the training team If every plugin and every theme was gpl compliant automatically then we wouldn't need the vetting process because They don't really be gpl compliant But because there are people who create and distribute plugins and themes in a non gpl compliant way We have to vet applications to make sure they are honoring the gpl system Before they are allowed into some roles in the training team um So That's a good observation reco and that is a good segue into our next slide Where we start looking at the training team specifically So Let's pause for a moment. What is the wordpress training team? So we're moving away from gpl and all that just in general What is the wordpress training? So the wordpress training team helps people learn to use Extend and contribute to wordpress through synchronous and asynchronous learning via learn.wordpress.org so Hopefully people watching this video have seen the learn.wordpress.org website Um, it looks a bit like this We have tutorials. We have lesson plans. We have courses. We also have online workshops So somebody creates this content on one somebody Maintains this content if there's a wordpress update we have to update the content That somebody is the wordpress training team So the wordpress training team is made up of volunteers who said we want to contribute to learn.wordpress.org And presents high quality education material for other people in the world to use as well The training team's vision is to be the coordinator for all the content on learn.wordpress We want learn.wordpress to be the go-to resource for learning and teaching wordpress So Rico you said you're a teacher and If you look in the world there are probably hundreds Maybe thousands of teachers out there who Are creating their own resources their own material to teach wordpress to different age groups different communities Well, what would be ideal is if there if learn.wordpress could be that central hub Where everybody shared their knowledge shared their resources Um, and then you could take that into your communities and teach people there That is the vision of the training team We're not there yet The learn.wordpress website still has a long way to grow But that is our vision. That's what we're working towards So here I've got a table. We call it the training team contributor ladder You don't have to read all the details But what I wanted to point out is at the top here we have some areas of contribution So the training team has content creators. We have editors We have subject matter experts and we have administrators So content creators are the people who make content But we also have editors who review content before it is published Or edit published content When an update needs to be made We also have subject matter experts who are experts of the different content topics Who assist content creators as they make content And then we also have administrators who look after a lot of the The tasks behind the scene that keep the website and the team running Um, and then you'll see down the left here. We have a progression so Of contribution So when people first join the team, they're in the connecting stage And as they contribute more to the team, they move to the engaging stage And then the performing stage And then the leading stage So the training team is made up of different areas of expertise And people move through a Like a growing progression through the team as they contribute more and more to the team Now out of all that Most of those roles can be done by anybody There are just four roles we vet for gpl adherence before they are Even special access to tools Um, and before they're accepted into those roles. So I just want to clarify most of the roles on the table beforehand Um, I'm necessarily vetted for gpl adherence. Um, there are just four roles we vet for Those are faculty members, which are like the mentors in the training team um online workshop facilitators Online workshop co-hosts. So that is like me and Neil today who are presenting in online workshops And tutorial presented So tutorials are our five to ten minute videos on loan wordpress and that talk about a specific topic Now these roles are vetted for gpl adherence Because these people become the face of wordpress in different recordings and in team leadership So I mentioned before um online workshops are recorded and uploaded to wordpress.tv and basically They're there forever. So Even after I die me talking today is going to remain on wordpress tv as a recording forever And so in a sense, I am the face of wordpress The gpl license is very important to wordpress and We we want everyone to follow gpl. Um, Unfortunately, some people don't But that's why we check to make sure people who become the face of wordpress Are following gpl because the gpl license is that important to the wordpress project So these people become the in a sense the face of wordpress and that's why they are vetted for gpl adherence All right, so how are they vetted? so in the training team handbook it says These people that the four roles I mentioned before they must embrace the wordpress license This means that if they are distributing wordpress derivative works such as themes plugins Etc these people or their business should give their users the same freedoms that wordpress itself provides So we've been talking about four freedoms and so if I were to create a plugin or a theme I would be checked beforehand to make sure those plugins or themes Are giving people the same freedoms that the wordpress software itself provides through the gpl license so In short, I don't make plugins or themes. Um, so I don't make derivative works so I am automatically cleared for gpl adherence because I I don't distribute anything But if you were a plugin developer or a theme developer or if you worked for a company that Created plugins or themes then we would check those plugins and themes to make sure they Kept the four freedoms that are included in the gpl license Now how do we do this specifically? um We the the wordpress project has a 22 teams One of them is the community team the community team has created a hundred percent gpl vetting checklist Um, so I'll copy this and put it in the zoom chat here for people And I won't go through all of this now, but you can have a look at this later. Um But the hundred percent gq we are gotten checklist I think it's like a 10 step checklist And like step one That's the speaker so they can distribute or promote wordpress themes If you might all skip to number five if yes continue, so it's like a yes no chat Um, and you just walk through the checklist and go all the way to the bottom And then once you get to the bottom, it says yes, this person is gpl compliant or they're not This is probably one of the best resources we have to help us check gpl compliant Of course, we don't have to follow that but it's a good reference point And it also helps you if you want to apply for these different roles You can sort of have a look at what process we'll be going through in that vetting process So we try to be as transparent as possible this gpl vetting Doesn't happen in secret. We try to be open about what we're checking for why we're checking it But again, if you have any questions, um, you are free to ask us not just in this online workshop We can always join the training team in channel a slack and we'd be happy to answer your questions there And one other thing I want to note is If somebody applies to become say an online workshop presenter And we notice their plugin or thing isn't gpl compliant which we Would like to offer guidance on helping that person make their plugin or theme gpl compliant We're not going to just say now You don't make the cut. Um, what we would actually like to see is You or that or that person Update their plugin in theme so that it is gpl compliant and then it it does carry the four freedoms of the gpl license um Because sometimes people distribute plugins or themes not really understanding the gpl life And so it's not that they intended to prohibit some of the freedoms They just didn't understand it will and so we want to help these people understand why the gpl license is important And help them change their products. Um, so that it is gpl compliant um So, yeah, that brings us to the end of the Explanation and I'll now hand it over to O'Neill for the live demonstration before we move there though Are there any questions people wanted to ask about what we've talked about so far? Sanya, I see you came in later in the session. Thank you for joining um I hope was there anything you wanted us to clarify before we jump into the live demonstration Regal can I also publish learning material at learn.work.org response and mention That is a good question And the training team has a handbook page That talks about let's see So Grand usage guidelines and promotional guidelines So I think your question this promotional guidelines page is going to be the most relevant Um, so I'll copy a link and put them the zoom chat. Yeah um So the quick answer is In most of our resources, we do allow the content creator to do a um A little bit of self promotion so you can mention your name your social accounts But the focus of the content is to be the content and The WordPress project is made up of a lot of Um, I don't know Oh Let me stop that thought. Um, so we want the focus of the content to be the content And we want to promote WordPress and the WordPress brand as much as possible um, so Regarding sponsor mentions, I'm not sure if that's come up specifically in the training team before Have a look at this guide. It might be something. Um, you could ask the training team and we could all consider together to see if it's appropriate or not um I mean, I'm I don't have Enough knowledge to give a yes or no answer right now or neil. Is there something you wanted to add to that? I feel like it's something we'd have to discuss as a team. Yeah, I think so. I've never actually encountered this Yeah, so good question repel um, and yet if if you are interested in joining the training team and um Mentioning your sponsors is something important to you. Then do let us know Um, and it is definitely something the training team can consider Um, let me share one more link. Um, this is the training teams onboarding program So if you're brand new to the training team This link I just dropped in the zoom chat is a good place to start and it will walk you through getting set up with the training team It'll help you um create a slack account So you can join the training team slack and bring your questions there And then the training team would be more than happy to discuss that with you Because we would like to see more contributors. Um, and so yes, please please join us there All right on here. Let me hand it over to you then Um, and you can do a live demonstration of what it looks like to bet a application I'm going to stop my share once and then Do you have the ability to share? Yes, I do. Okay Sharing my screen now. Thank you Ben. Okay. Can you see my screen? Yes, all right. Um, this is just essentially the steps that we take when vetting an application So the first thing that's going to happen once you apply as a Uh tutorial presenter, we're going to receive an email the faculty admin will receive an email We're using ben as an example. He's volunteered his own information as an example here So the first thing you're going to see here is the name of the applicant. So benjamin evans or ben evans You can actually include that in one of your search strings One of the first things I do is check the information that's given here email address One thing you can look at here if there are any previous conversations within help scout which means Ben if ben has communicated with the tutorial with the training team With another part of the learn wordpress group in a previous Conversation, he's applied for another Uh position in the training team like online presenter or tutorial presenter It should appear here if he uses the same email address But if he's using a different one then it'll it won't appear in the same as previous conversations So that's one thing you should check if he's already applied before And then the next thing you should check is The username so you put that which means this is his profile in the in wordpress.org you enter this Into his profile here And then you come up with this information. So you'll see here full name and members since March 23rd. So you copy this information Put it into the list So that you have all of this information that he has location The name of his blog so his website this is can be a Work blog or it can be a personal blog So you can copy this information as well. And then you can also check his github contributions So you can also see if he's actually been active within the wordpress github Job title and the employer. So one thing we like to check also is whether he's working for a company that is gpl compliant whether the the software that they release the Themes that they release are gpl compliant. So you can check here Been working for automatic. So you can check There's actually a list of these companies that are already gpl compliant. This is a complete list Of the companies that create themes. So there's a list and then you can see whether they're gpl compliant here This is just one way of checking if the company is gpl compliant And then you go through the other information what type of tutorials so Ben is looking at creating Different types of tutorials. You can also copy his expertise. So you copy this information It also helps to make a an excel list So that you can add it as a note into the email And then next will be his Social media accounts social media that he included is twitter facebook linked in instagram So you can check all of these twitter Whether it's an active account. You can see the information the company that he contributes to His interaction with other people on wordpress his Attending word camps or meetups within his region within the area You can also check facebook You can also see other information that he does here. He indicates where he works his location. This is just to confirm The information that he's being given he has given in the email LinkedIn is actually very helpful because you'll also see professional connections so people who he works with or he's connected to in professionally and then the activity whether he Contributes to wordpress activities workshops and word camps So that's also the information there and then instagram some people also like to post things that they do on instagram And another thing we also check is whether the person is active on meetup Meetup is where what the software we use for Organizing the events the activities so you can see when ben joined how often he's rspp'd for Activities and when was the last time he visited a group so you can see whether they're also active in the And then another thing we also like to do is do a google search By just the name either the full name or a nickname and then wordpress so you can also see the social accounts whether They're also active Other online activities And then going back to his profile you can also see The contributions of For example ben He has you can see he has multiple badges included with his contribution So he's actually very active in different aspects of the wordpress community translation training as a speaker and wordpress tv contributor and then lower here you can see Other activity within github within the workshops Take even taking the courses and whether they Are active also on slack on writing comments on the forums and if you're already part of the wordpress slack you can also check there if the applicant has uh contributed to the training team meetings And whether they are also active in the discussions So a lot of these things are just basically searching online different places Whether you can see the activities that they've done And then of course you can see make sure that the software that they're producing whether it's plugins or themes or Have the gpl compliance by going through the checklist Then you can determine whether uh, they should be approved or if there are any red flags that we should watch out for or recommend that they can adjust their their gpl license to be able to be compliant for the wordpress Gpl so that they can become part of the wordpress training team And after that we'll reply to Ben and then select And then whether it's approved or declined Then you can just say approved And then reply to his send him his email and then he can Start contributing to the wordpress learn wordpress training team That's all Thank you very much, O'Neil um Does anybody have any questions about that process any questions? Anything you'd like audience to show again I have a question O'Neil just On average, how long would it take you to vet an applicant like is it 5 minutes 15 minutes? Oh, um, for example like the your application you listed your Social accounts that makes it faster makes it easier to find Your presence online If you list your company the company that creates the plugins, whether it's your a developer Theme creator it makes it faster, but there are some who just indicate their email their name If they don't have that much information or if they use Different names uh different from their profile. It makes it a little harder So it might take maybe a couple of hours to look through And confirm if this person who applied is actually the same person linked in same person in the company. So maybe One or two hours to go through an application Possibly longer if they have limited information But what we do if they don't have enough information is we send them a follow-up email asking if they can Indicate their contribution to WordPress specific and specify What they've done in the WordPress Okay, thank you Rika also asked a question How many people will be bled off? I I presume you mean like Will be declined as a as a result of this Do you want to answer that O'Neill? Yeah, um, actually we've It's very rare that there's going to be a big red flag um, some people there are spam applications which is essentially Just a bot maybe trying to apply trying to fill in the form So that one we check it if they don't respond I usually send them a follow-up email to get more information if they don't respond within a week I mark that as spam But if there's an application that has certain information that's not consistent Meaning their name is different from their profile on other social accounts or even linked in or if it's uh on If they have a Their company account or company website is not compliant Then that is already a red flag Or if they don't have a lot of contribution in the WordPress space We might ask for more information if they're not able to give much more information It might be a yellow flag as in not that big a difference, but um, maybe one or two out of 10 or 20 Is average maybe 5 to 10 percent Because a lot of people who do apply are already working in the WordPress space. They just want to be able to contribute more. So Yeah, it's it's it's not a big number of people are declined Yeah And just to add to that I've also been investing applicants for almost a year In the whole year, I'd say I've had two people Who weren't gpl compliant at least on my first check and so I wrote to them and said hey, I don't think you're gpl compliant and One of the person actually clarified that they are it was some wording in their website. That was a bit confusing So after that clarification, they were okay The second person they confirmed they weren't And but they were willing to change the licensing on their plugins so that it became gpl compliant so that they could contribute Um, so as O'Neill said, there's a there's a lot of spam. So Aside from the spam out there real applicants in the year I've had two people who I've noticed who aren't gpl compliant But through conversations, they've both been able to update their licensing and get approved. So It's yeah, I agree. It's very rare that somebody is just declined and like not allowed Record does that does that answer your question? Does that give you enough information? And we have just a few more minutes. Yep. Um, if there are any other final questions you wanted to ask I'm going to share my screen one more time So, you know, I was going to share the link to today's slides. Um So let me drop that in the zoom chat and then you'll be able to click on the links the slides also have presenter notes So you'll be able to read a lot more what we've been talking about. There are extra links in the presenter notes So let me drop them in the zoom chat again, you're free to um In a sense like download create a copy of this resources to look at later And then the final slide has um additional resources that sort of back up a lot of what we've been talking about today um I think personally the gpo license was all confusing when I started contributing to wordpress as well. Um Especially when like when I realized that you can have paid for products that are still gpl compliant um the concept of free software paid software that it's still free as in It has freedom Um, that was a bit confusing to me even now sometimes when i'm vetting someone If I come across a confusing situation, I will ask other administrators in the training team to get a second opinion Because it is it is a bit confusing But hopefully today after this presentation You've been able to understand gpl a bit better and you've been able to understand how gpl is used in the training team how we take for gpl appearance And more than anything, I hope you have been You are interested in joining the training team and help us create content for the loan wordpress website um So yeah, once again, I dropped the onboarding program link in the zoom chat here Do take a look at that and um Yeah, we're a few minutes early, but if there aren't any other questions, I think we might finish there Thank you so much for attending everyone. Thank you for co-hosting with me on neil And I look forward to seeing everyone in another online workshop in pu chat Thank you for your time