anyone think editing a free theme is wrong ? unethical ?

[bunun]

i had this discussion with 2 people that have been monitoring my progress with my site/blog. id like to know what are your thoughts.

im a pretty hands on and technical person, but originally knew nothing about wordpress. i needed a theme to power my site, and after finally choosing one that looked nice, i came to the conclusion that it really didnt fit my needs, and nothing really did.

so i gutted everything out, and my end product looks nothing like what the original theme author intended. i could actually start from scratch since learning so much about wordpress, but i really dont see the need to right now, maybe later.

wrong ? right ? my original intention was to blog, not learn wordpress, but what was available to me just was either over kill, or unnecessary, thoughts ?

[Nathan]

There is definitely nothing wrong with changing a theme. Its your website after all.

In addition, if you have changed the original theme so much that it is nothing like the original then feel free to remove the attribution link. I've done it myself before.

If you've already recoded most of it then there's no reason to leave their PR stealing link on there.

[Madness of the World]

To be honest - I wouldn't know how to change my theme!!!

[Ferox]

I often tweak my themes because none are ever perfect. Some are designed for you to change the header, for example.

I can't justify removing the credits in the footer, because I haven't changed the theme enough.

[Jane]

I would agree with everyone, it's fine to edit a free template. I often leave the original author's name and add something like, 'Additional customisation by Jane'.

[QuirkyMomma]

I have customized my blog a bit and I hope to customize it a bunch more. Great idea, Jane, to mention myself in the "credit" portion. I know the areas I am "adapting" are poorly written with a ton of junk code so I'd hate for the original code writer to be blamed for any problems my theme has... they are all my fault. The fact that it looks okay is because the author, like any good author, made reading it really easy so I could hack it up!

[Invader_Stu]

They are free so I don't see anything wrong with changing them. The only thing I would not do is claim it all as my own work if it's only changed a little.

[QuirkyJessi]

Yep, agreed with the others. It's perfectly fine to change themes and if it looks absolutely nothing like the original, it's fine to remove the attribution link.

[gtodd09]

I have done that on a few of my blogs. Most of them are very similar with few modifications to the css. If I change more css and add/delete some features, I feel that is is fully my blog. EDIT AWAY!!!

[happinay]

I agree with those who said it's okay to edit free themes, so long as you do not claim it as yours or give the original author / creator no credit at all.