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Loading ...What Mimbo Hath Spawned
Category: Themes and Tricks
- CSS We Are The Buzz
(5 out of 5) - Throw (5 out of 5)
- qmula (5 out of 5)
- Heartworker (5 out of 5)
- Decently Exposed (5 out of 5)
- Gmcosta (5 out of 5)
- FreelanceDaddy (5 out of 5)
- LifeStyle Web (5 out of 5)
- Tech Tunes (5 out of 5)
- DePo Masthead (3 out of 5)
From the beginning, Mimbo was meant to function like an empty framework that enabled developers to build advanced WP layouts more quickly. Developers ran with the idea, adding their own custom graphics and CSS.
Slowly I’ve begun seeing Mimbo redistributed on other sites. The folks at Niss.fr translated it into French, added a tabbed interface and made it available for download. The folks at Pwllheli.org created their own translation in Welsh (a language with so many adjacent vowels it looks like someone was typing with their fists, fwiw).
The GPL states that downloaders of Mimbo are “permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies”. Niss’s theme is non-verbatim, but because it retains the Mimbo branding I’m much less inclined to care. Mainly I’m just happy to see Mimbo be adapted in a way that helps people.
But, this week the redistribution of Mimbo was taken a step further by Michael Oeser, who changed the name to Branford Magazine, thus relieving him of any GPL issues. He also added some bits from Structure (Justin Tadlock) and Revolution (Brian Gardner), though anyone viewing the source code can see it’s 90% Mimbo with a new paint job.
Oeser has also provided a PayPal link in case anyone wants to compensate him for the effort.
(Completing the full circle, Niss is already offering a French translation of Branford Magazine!)
While Oesser is upfront about the influences, he’s never contacted me about the idea. Since Mimbo was released last August, I’ve had a handful of emails from people asking to release their own version, or if they could clone it and charge for it. My answer has always been that, while I obviously can’t stop them, why not dig a little deeper and create something original? I’ve never gotten responses to those emails (I like to assume they thought better of it), but I also haven’t seen any blatant Mimbo clones until today.
Before commenting further on this, I’m curious what you guys think.
[...] blog feed, it’s best to get permission first and give proper credit, and don’t just do it for crummy advertising dollars [...]
[...] If you do decide to parse/publish someone else’s blog feed, it’s best to get permission first and give proper credit, and don’t just do it for crummy advertising dollars [...]