This post is meant as prep for the IRCIRC Internet Relay Chat, a network where users can have conversations online. IRC channels are used widely by open source projects, and by WordPress. The primary WordPress channels are #wordpress and #wordpress-dev, on irc.freenode.net. dev chat taking place in about 3 hours, *not* as an official done deal announcement/dictate/decision, so please take it in the spirit in which it’s being offered. This is how we think it should work, and after the dev chat we’ll do a gut check to see if it still makes sense.

“We’re taking a dev cycle off after 3.0 to focus on the wordpress.orgWordPress.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/ site, plugins, and community improvements.” Ever since that idea was put forth, there have been people wildly in favor and wildly opposed. Let’s all relax a little. Here’s the general thinking of the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team:

• Take a two month hiatus from core before beginning discussion of scope for/development on version 3.1. Obviously, security fixes and/or major bugs would still get a point releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. if needed in that time.
• Identify a handful of projects that can be completed in 2 months that would make the WordPress experience appreciably better, whether it’s related to support, pluginPlugin 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 developer infrastructure, or anything else. Taking comments on this in the forums at this thread.
• Identify contributors who want to be part of this effort and are willing to make a specific time commitment of x hours per week for two months, as well as which mini-projects most appeal to them.
• Put together teams from the volunteers, small ninja/pirate teams of 3-5 developers who can crank out code like [insert a metaphor better than the one that came to mind for me, ‘cranking out spaghetti from a pasta maker,’ which is terrible]. Add a consulting member of the UIUI User interface working group so things all work/look consistent. Add a lead/commit-level dev to each team to guide the project.
• Have each team agree to the scope of its project, create a timeline for the 2 months, and start by writing an announcement post for their improvement (this helps focus the scope and gives you a tangible goal for completion).
• We’ll give team members author rights on this blogblog (versus network, site), and each team will post an update at least once per week, using the tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) that we identify for the project, so interested community members can follow along with the project feeds.
• Launch improvements as they are finished (they don’t all need to wait until 2 months have elapsed).
• Bask in glow of appreciative WordPress community and your own heightened sense of awesomeness for volunteering your time and being a part of something bigger than yourself that affects tens of millions of people on a daily basis.

Think of it like the hiatus that TV actors take in between seasons: just long enough to do a movie and get re-inspired to tackle the next season’s character blah blah blah. This will only work if we really stick to our guns and focus on .org projects; if we’re debating things all over tracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. at the same time, attention will be divided and we won’t accomplish the goals of the two month project sprint.

This can also serve as an experiment in forming mini-dev teams for discrete projects, which is something that has been discussed as maybe worth trying for core feature development.

We’ll discuss all this in the dev chat today. After the dev chat is over, people interested in participating in the 2-month .org project sprint should leave a comment on this post. We’ll organize it kind of like we did for choosing GSoC students and mentors: Identify your most useful/relevant dev skills, what potential projects you would most like to be involved with, if there’s anyone you’re particularly interested in collaborating with, etc. On Monday we’ll see what we’ve got and try to put together some appropriate teams.

The more we can approach this experiment with a positive attitude, the more likely it is to succeed.

#3-org, #wordpress-org