Hello everyone,
Thanks for participating in the long, spirited discussion about which payment gateways to use for Indian currency on WordCamp.org. Since I started this hot topic, I will try to recap and suggest a path forward.
- It is evident from many comments that KDC Pay does in fact work well for lots of people/WordCamps. Many thanks to @vachan for doing a great service to the Indian WP community by enabling organizer teams to receive registration funds without having to register business entities.
- It also seems that it would be unsustainable to continue relying on only one payment gateway run by a small team as the Indian WP community continues to grow.
- There are, of course, benefits and drawbacks to each alternative, and each WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizing team has different styles and preferences, such that there isn’t a good way to pick a single option to move forward with.
Building on the suggestions of many others in the discussion, here is a solution I would like to propose:
- Keep the existing KDC Pay plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party for the time being.
- Instead of adding separate plugins for Razorpay and Instamojo, create a single plugin to support multiple gateways/platforms that can be enhanced and expanded in the future. @sanyog has already started one that might serve this purpose. It would be great to figure out how to incorporate @ravinderk‘s contributions as well. I would suggest a platform-neutral name for the plugin, such as “INR Currency for CampTix”.
- Maintain the plugin in a GitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repo with multiple contributors. Perhaps house the repo in a GitHub organization for the whole community, rather than in someone’s personal/business account. This way everyone’s contributions can be recognized and the maintenance/enhancement of the plugin can be community-driven.
It’s true that there’s not a big difference in the maintenance burden between three small, single-gateway plugins and one large plugin with multiple gateways. However, my hope is that after the initial code review, the community would be able to help with testing/reviewing updates before we apply them on WordCamp.org. This would hopefully help reduce the necessary time commitment for those of us maintaining the network.
I think we should all acknowledge that no matter what decision is ultimately made, some people are probably not going to be satisfied. In a situation like this, the concept of “agree and commit, disagree and commit” can help us move forward in a healthy way. What that means is that regardless of whether we agree with the decision or not, we commit to supporting it for the good of the project, rather than continuing to argue.
To move forward on the above proposed solution, I think the next steps would be:
- Create a GitHub organization or at least a repo to house the plugin, and open it to contributions from community members. How can this be done in a way that is fair to everyone?
- Collaborate on a version of the plugin that supports both of the options we have been discussing: Razorpay and Instamojo.
- Submit this new plugin to the WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ plugin directory.
- Get the plugin reviewed for inclusion on WordCamp.org.
Thanks again for all the input.