Guideline Update: Clarifications to trialware and human readability

Two situations have arisen where we feel it would be best to clarify the guidelines a little.

We strongly feel that one of the strengths of open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. is the ability to review, observe, and adapt code. By maintaining a public directory of freely available code, we encourage and welcome future developers to engage with WordPress and push it forward.

However with the advent of larger and larger plugins using more complex libraries, people are making proper use of build tools (such as npm) to generate their distributed production code. In order to balance the need to keep 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 sizes smaller while still encouraging open source development, we will be requiring plugins to make the source code to any compressed files available.

For example, if you’ve made a GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ plugin and used npm and webpack to compress and minify it, you must either include the source code within the published plugin or provide access to a public maintained source that can be reviewed, studied, and yes, forked.

We strongly recommend you include directions on the use of any build tools to encourage future developers.

Guideline 5: Trialware

Historically we’ve not permitted test or trial plugins that arbitrarily limit usage, and then upsell, to be included in the directory. The primary reason we don’t permit this is that locking people down to a specific number of (say) images is foolish and a pointless endeavour. People can, and will, fork your locked plugin and unlock it, as well they should. That said, we’ve always allowed (and will continue to) plugins that offer a free limited service (think Akismet for a good example).

Related to this are ‘sandbox’ plugins, used for testing. For example, if your plugin only accessed the Instagram Sandbox APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., and included upsells about a pro version that allowed full access, you would be a trial plugin. Since they are easily abused as turning the directory into a marketplace, we have modified the 5th guideline to address this more clearly.

#guidelines

Bernhard Kau 9:33 pm on August 23, 2018

I like the idea of having all (self created) source code in a readable form available. It would also be nice, if we could (some day) add a “Contribute to this 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 at [platform XY]” to the readme files (or plugin headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. comments), so users can easily find the plugin on GitHubGitHub 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//GitLab/Bitbucket/etc. Or should plugins authors put those links in a random place in their readme?

And regarding the Trialware, how would you judge this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/encyclopedia-lexicon-glossary-wiki-dictionary/

It limits the number of items you can create to only 18, which for me is a clear violation of “Guideline 5”.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 9:50 pm on August 23, 2018
  
  Or should plugins authors put those links in a random place in their readme?
  
  For now I would recommend putting it in the FAQ or the description. We may craft a dedicated place, but at this point in time fewer than 1% of all plugins need to do this anyway, so it’s not horrible.
  
  It limits the number of items you can create to only 18, which for me is a clear violation of “Guideline 5”.
  
  I would tell you to email `plugins@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/` in general. I’ll have a look though
- Neil Murray 9:54 pm on August 23, 2018
  
  The 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 headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. is already too cluttered – far easier to just be added somewhere in the Description.
  - Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:46 pm on August 23, 2018
    
    Really the issue of having it in the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. is management. We gain the ability to force the link to show where _WE_ want (as .org maintainers) but then we have to think about how to manage arbitrary URLs. People could put in pr0n links after all and they’d be hidden as “Code Source” or something. At least this way they have to make an effort to hide evil.
Kim Gjerstad 9:09 am on October 4, 2018

Thanks for insisting. We obliged.

We’ve wanted to make our repo public for a while for readability and security reasons.

https://github.com/mailpoet/mailpoet/

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