
Free Bootstrap Themes - aram
http://www.blacktie.co/
======
eggbrain
First thing I check when I read "Free" is I see what the license is (MIT/BSD).
Unfortunately, you can't find out what license the theme uses until you get
the actual theme. You don't get the actual theme until you put your email
address in. I couldn't submit my email address until I subscribed to the
newsletter (but upon trying it again in incognito I wasn't prompted to
subscribe -- might have been an error on my part, although the checkbox seems
borked).

I went ahead and took the plunge with a Mailinator address to see what I could
find out, and it looks like there isn't any license to the themes at all. I'm
not sure if this is good or bad -- if code has no license, is it a free for
all?

Second thing I check is whether the free theme inserts links in the code to
their own website (visible or invisible). From what I see, that is not the
case with the theme I downloaded.

Looks like some great resources guys, but a little more information would be
invaluable. Can't wait to try some of these out for some quick sites though :)

~~~
Kiro
Am I the only one who never care about licenses? It says "free" so I download
it. What is the worst thing that can happen?

~~~
pearjuice
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

~~~
taspeotis
Yeah some not-so-diligent person added some "free" code to our commercial,
closed-source application.

"Free" as in GPL2.

Ripped that out pretty quickly.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Did you 'rip it out' in the sense of rolling back the commit, or did you
refactor the code (and replace the GPL2 code with code that did the
same/similar thing)?

If it were the latter, would your entire codebase be considered a derivative
work (just as if I took some GPL2 code and refactored it until all the
original code was gone)?

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rmrfrmrf
Somewhat tangentially related, but it's been bugging me for a while -- is
every brogrammer in America _really_ this ridiculously attractive, or are
hackers using model "stunt doubles"? One wouldn't expect GitHub to be full of
gorgeous male models who happen to sit in perfect coffee shop lighting while
laughing in an almost robotic perfection, but _here we are_!

(The stock photos on the site made me think of it, haha.)

~~~
rfnslyr
Maybe people just put time into their appearance? It's amazing how far a good
diet, good sleep, exercise, and some grooming can go.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
> _Maybe people just put time into their appearance?_

Impossible.

> _It 's amazing how far a good diet, good sleep, exercise, and some grooming
> can do._

It's a slippery slope, though. You start with that crap and, before you know
it, you're doing flat-out irrational things like _getting dressed_ and
_brushing your teeth_. I shudder at the thought!

~~~
AfroDiva
Hey, i put time into my appearance , i don't wanna sound out of the blue or
get into stereotypes but maybe is because i am gay, don't know. Really, i have
seem in so many conference attractive programmers like the ones in the photos.

~~~
madeofpalk
No.

There are attractive (develoepers|journalists|best buy employees), and there
are unattractive (develoepers|journalists|best buy employees).

I think it's mostly sterotypes and confirmation bias. The ugly people are less
liekly to post photos of themselves online, so you only ever notice the
attractive ones.

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wasd
The themes are beautiful and the presentation is nice but the required email
opt in totally turns me off. Why not just host these on github? I actually
want to be on your newsletter but I don't like that you are forcing people to
do so [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7002338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7002338)

~~~
sgdesign
The "tweet to download" model is bad because you're forcing someone to endorse
a product publicly before they even get a chance to try it, thus potentially
hurting their credibility.

On the other hand, the "leave email to download" model is completely fair. Not
only is it used by the overwhelming majority of companies (most apps require
some form of signing up), but you're also the only one receiving those email.
So the cost is entirely personal.

So in this case, it's really a matter of whether or not the transaction is
worth it for you, and I don't think you have any grounds to complain.

P.S. I'm not the author by the way, I just get ticked off seeing that
objection, especially when somebody is already not charging any money for
their products.

~~~
wasd
Hey Sacha, I'm a huge reader of your blog and follow your work. I completely
agree with what you're saying but I think you might be misunderstanding me. I
agree that email to download is not a bad system. The problem I have is that
in order to be apart to download the theme, you need to opt into his
newsletter. This is different from registration because when you register, you
are not forced to opt into a newsletter. This product isn't free. The cost
having any theme is to be apart of an audience this creator is building. This
is a weak cost admittedly but I think that it turns a lot of people off that
they have to join his news letter because that doesn't fit in line with many
people's definition of free.

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thehodge
Some of these are really great although I always chuckle at the idea of web
design agencies using free themes for there own website.

~~~
atourgates
I feel it says something fairly sad about the state of the industry when
"Agency" themes are some of the most popular website themes out there.

Sort of the (sad) opposite of demonstrating your craft in your own tools:
[http://www.finewoodworking.com/woodworking-
plans/article/the...](http://www.finewoodworking.com/woodworking-
plans/article/the-ho-studley-tool-chest.aspx)

------
jongold
"Munter" means something that presumably you don't think it means.

~~~
joeblau
LOL, I just looked it up, then went back to the page and now I can't stop
laughing.

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extrapolate
Why have a checkbox[1], if we can't toggle it.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/WbCJQsk.png](http://i.imgur.com/WbCJQsk.png)

~~~
bkm
Many European countries require an opt-in subscription model by law ("EU Opt-
In Directive") where the user explicitly states it want to receive the
newsletter (e.g. it not being a side effect of a registration).

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Phrodo_00
I think it's really weird that the example content is about design companies.
Shouldn't those design their own homepages?

~~~
techwizrd
I've always thought that too. Either way, these themes look pretty good. I
like Bootstrap themes for simple one-off projects or demos that I want to try.
For anything serious I'll at least change the colors and modify things.

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akbar501
For the curious, I did some digging and found the following:

Blacktie.co was created by Carlos Alvares
([http://www.alvarez.is/](http://www.alvarez.is/)). He's a designer who has a
number of paid themes on
[https://wrapbootstrap.com/user/Basicoh](https://wrapbootstrap.com/user/Basicoh).
Blacktie appears to be his own site where he gives away some free themes in
exchange for your email address.

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ajayjain
Very cool, I might use one of these! The email with the download link was
marked as spam by gmail, so you might have to do a search in:anywhere.

Some other free themes: [http://wrapbootstrap.com](http://wrapbootstrap.com)
(I'm not affiliated, just love their stuff). They have less files and a
compiled css file for their themes.

~~~
corobo
I realise they're cheaper than coffee but I'm not seeing any free themes here
at all. Even sorting lowest to highest price the lowest is $4. Do they have a
hidden category somewhere for free?

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lindig
"Education: Web Designer | Greenville University. Business Master | Loyal
Univesrity." <\--

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sixQuarks
The responsive breakpoints are not really optimized on the themes I took a
look at. Leaves a bunch of space on the margins, sometimes breaks way too
early, images aren't responsive, etc.

I guess you can't complain when it's free though.

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jonaldomo
I think the market for HTML templates is on the rise. Is anyone else seeing
that?

~~~
eddieroger
I think it's more symptomatic of developers realizing that UI is hard
(guilty), and while we may think it's easy to make something, it's hard to
make it something people want to use. I can't tell you how many times I've
nearly bought a Bootstrap theme rather than making one myself. Call it lazy,
call it throwing money at your problems/weaknesses, but I agree, there's a
rising market for themes.

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kenshiro_o
Just downloaded a theme by using a throwaway email address and have already
customized it. Looks really slick!

I have also just discovered fontawesome, which just shows that I really need
to improve my front-end programming skills...

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beh
As someone just getting started with front end development and who learns best
by tinkering, this is a great resource.

What are some other Bootstrap focused resources to learn front end
development?

~~~
guelo
getbootstrap.com/getting-started, getbootstrap.com/css,
getbootstrap.com/components and getbootstrap.com/javascript

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bluetidepro
Are these awesome themes on GitHub? it would also be really nice if they were
all under one repo, or each had their own! Just an idea. Great work!

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eflowers
No Less files? That feels like something that would be really helpful.

