Is it legal to remove or modify footer attribution information?

Question

This is simple yet important question

Is it legal to completely remove or modify footer credit / attrubution? like Powered By and Theme developed by?

As per my knowledge of GPL licesnce anyone can modify the code but they must not remove any credit from entire socurce code.

I just want to clear this specific credit related point.

Answer 1

Yes it is legal. The GPL states you must maintain the GPL/copyright notice in the source code. On Q2A it's the comment at the top of every PHP file. The GPL says nothing about visible attribution on the front end.

Also, this stuff doesn't apply to using the software anyway, it only applies when you want to redistribute it.

For themes, you might want to have a look at the Creative Commons licenses, which you can require attribution for. Note: CC covers the "creative" side i.e. the actual graphics/theme look. It's supposedly not suited for code.

Comments

Thanks to clearing my confusion. I appreciate it.