It’s open source, you can remove it. (I think?)
Still, there are lots of places you can’t put such a statement in. It’s polite to talk about those whose work you benefited from. An about page on your blog/forum with a link would be enough. Or maybe somewhere near where you put your advertising, a link with the logo of bbpress. Unitrusive and can even be pretty if you make a nice banner.
It’s encouraged but not required.
Thank you so much guys! .. that’s a great help on my very first question. *thumbs up*
bbPress is GPL v2, so they can’t *require* you to display it. If you haven’t been watching, there’s a huge discussion going on regarding WordPress and premium themes, the GPL, etc.
Where is this discussion taking place? I’m always game for a good discussion!
Some thoughts on the WordPress community, themes, and the GPL
http://spectacu.la/wordpressorg-pull-200-gpl-themes/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2008/12/17/matt-the-gpl-and-more/
There’s a two hour interview there with Matt Mullenweg. He discusses premium themes, the GPL, WordPress, BuddyPress and even bbPress (although he seemed somewhat out of touch with bbPress.)
I should have said that the bulk of the discussion was 2 weeks ago