Over on
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,6446.0.html
a guy called Deep is after a port of a WordPress plugin called Democracy:
http://blog.jalenack.com/archives/democracy/
(basically an AJAX poll-in-sidebar thingie)
and is willing to stump up some cash for it.
The plugin is released under CC GPL 2.0.
Now, given that the plugin author himself is rewriting the code for his next release (as it isn’t OOPy), any "port" would be a significant rewrite.
I am very much in favour of the notion of recieving sponsorship in return for creating an open-source thing and providing specific support on it. That way everyone wins. Client gets a solution now, that meets his needs. I get some money, which justifies to my girlfriend the extra time spent. Community gets a shiny extra.
However, when it comes to a "port", I’m not sure where things stand. Clearly if I used the code I would have to release the port under GPL, but then I would do that anyway. I would feel morally obligated to pass on some money to the original author.
Actually, I’ve decided to tell this guy that I’d rather create an extra for Polls Module.
But anyway. Two general points still worth debating.
One: what is the consensus on co-opting Wordpress plugins
Two: what is the going rate for sponsored coding and/or porting?
