Hello,
I want to submit a Free + Premium theme to Hugo, Some part of the theme would be free and another part would be premium. People can get the free part from the Hugo theme directory and buy the premium version on our website.
If I can, what is the procedure?
Regards
Currently you can not.
I see themes in the official gallery have links to the authorâs website so Iâm curious about the reasoning behind such policy?
Does any of those themes cost money to use?
The âpartâ thing is a bit confusing but I believe the OP meant that they plan to submit a fully functional free theme to the Hugo themes directory. The theme would most likely feature a link to the website where an âimprovedâ paid version is offered.
Itâs been a popular marketing technique for years on wordpress.org.
Yes, and more and more people are adopting Hugo these days, then why should hugo restrict its expansion in themes? Although there are many themes in the hugo themes directory but they are not as good as other CMS platform.
Let people develop great themes for hugo and you guys should support them.
Perhaps as Hugo grows premium themes are an option. Perhaps you can create a free theme for the repository and then on your own website advertise a premium version.
I donât think the intention of the Hugo theme website is to also include âpart of the theme would be free and another part would be premiumâ. That would be confusion for people that download and install the theme.
Thereâs by the way a discussion about commercial themes here: should we accept commercial themes?. You can find some viewpoints in there.
But thereâs a bigger challenge that I want to address in this reply. And thatâs your approach. I donât think youâre doing yourself a favour by discrediting the 200+ themes that other people made. Sure, some earlier themes might be outdated by now and we can discuss what makes a theme pretty or not. But itâs not a constructive attitude to bring to the table when you come asking for something.
The same goes for your comment that âyou guys should support commercial themesâ. The Hugo team are all volunteers and theyâve already done a tremendous amount of work and help. They are not obligated to âshould be doingâ anything.
Why not help the Hugo team? You could start by clearing thinking out how freemium themes should work. Your opening post still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and you canât expect the Hugo team to work out or explore those details so you can start making money.
Thank you @Jura! Well said!
@HeyArviind, you may follow Themefisherâs great example on how to get their free themes listed in themes.gohugo.io:
Thank you everyone for replyingâŚ
All I understood is, List the theme on hugo under MIT licence and Sell the Premium version on my website.
Am I right?
Probably it would be a good idea if the core team picks a specific license or agree on a policy as a requirement for all listed themes.
The GPL worked good for WordPress as it didnât allow theme developers to use shady practices like enforcing mandatory footer links. And there is a rather strict review process.
Even better - consider building an official marketplace. Probably a bit early for Hugo, but something worth keeping in mind.
All I understood is, List the theme on hugo under MIT licence and Sell the Premium version on my website.
Well, AFAIK, your âfreeâ (as in freedom) theme can be under any valid open-source license, see https://opensource.org/ for example.
Yes, and itâs precisely what destroyed the Wordpress ecosystem. Everyone competing against everyone to make business and develop more and more crippled themes where youâve got to pay to change the font or support multiple authors⌠Itâs really brought down the general quality of Wordpress themes and nowadays i donât know any single theme thatâs not a complete commercial scam, unusable out-of-the-box with megabytes of assets loaded on every page!
(I was so desperate i even wrote my own Wordpress theme, and that nightmare brought me to Hugo :P)
If some people within or outside the core Hugo team want to build a paid marketplace for bullshit themes, it would be super nice to do it outside of the main themes repository which is really good to get inspiration on how to implement stuff without useless anti-customization layers 
Destroyed it how exactly? It became a gold mine but that wasnât bad for the end user - quite the opposite, actually. It brought variety and choice. The performance-oriented users and developers can always pick a not-so-cluttered theme as a starting point.
If itâs a rotten ecosystem, then why most, if not nearly all, Hugo themes are ports of existing WP themes?
WordPress offered value and that naturally brought money. I donât see how this is a bad thing.
Indeed. I saw a theme the other day, with lots of pre-built layouts and a builder, that made 2 million dollars in sales on ThemeForest. So thereâs clear market for this kind of thing.
I was wrong! Actually it is 6 million dollars (total for the author and Envato). This is the theme: Betheme | Responsive Multipurpose WordPress & WooCommerce Theme by muffingroup
The performance-oriented users and developers can always pick a not-so-cluttered theme as a starting point.
Please name one responsive and multilingual Wordpress theme that doesnât use Javascript and doesnât try to restrict users or track them with external assets. So far i havenât found any.
If itâs a rotten ecosystem, then why most, if not nearly all, Hugo themes are ports of existing WP themes?
Well itâs more the other way around. Why is every one moving to different ecosystems and porting things as they go?
that naturally brought money. I donât see how this is a bad thing.
Money never occurs naturally. Itâs a disease of the mind that replaces value in use with commercial value. You capitalist and your property mindset kill an incredible number of people and enslave so many more. Thatâs a very bad thing for end users.
Only through self-organized free-software workers coop can we really try and work together for the end users. See for example riseup.net hosting coop, framasoft.org non-profit association for example. They develop amazing technos for end-users (Bitmask, PeertubeâŚ)
If you wish to sell service such as support to your theme users, well we live in a sad society that you have to do this to get a roof on your head and something to eat, but at least youâre paying your bills with your time and energy, which is respectable labour.
If you sell individual copies of your theme and your whole economical model relies on people not sharing and not helping each other out, then youâre just a cockroach taking part in the property system and therefore paying your bills with the honest labour of other people further down the line.
PS: Iâm neither a marxist nor any kind of statist so please donât try to throw at me the massacres of state capitalism (USSR & such) in response to my criticisms of the massacres of liberal capitalism and your ownership/property mindset (which you have in common with bolsheviks!)
PPS: The simple fact weâre talking here through the Internet was made possible by people fighting your ownership mindset, sharing infos & ideas and standardizing concepts and protocols.
This discussion has gone very off topic.
We all know about Wordpress themes.
And as @anthonyfok said above one can list a theme with an Open Source license in the Hugo repo.
You can always try to sell the premium version on your websites. Or a third party marketplace.
Iâm closing this thread.