Summary of Afternoon Discussions

John James Jacoby: WordCamp.org

Action item: 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. the base theme, and then plugins that we use so people can contribute to them

  • Talked about pain points that organizers have for using WordCamp.org

Andy Stratton: Commercial Plugins and Quality Control

Action item: Should push people in support forums to the right place

  • Kill switches?

Brian Layman: How can developers with small plugins make money and be legit?

Action item: Show top downloaded, recently added (6mo?) plugins on 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 repo to promote new authors

  • Plugin stores often do allow GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. plugins
  • Many reasons why it might be better to release it on your own: customers are your customers not theirs.
  • Freemium is a workable model but donation really is not
  • Should approach established plugin companies establish a relationship and see if they want to publish your plugin.

Cristi Burcă (Scribu): Future of MultisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network.

Action item: wp-signup.php converted to theme templates, domain mapping in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

  • There are two main use cases: untrusted users, groups of sites
  • Focused mainly on the second use case
  • Hard to share data between sites (though switch_to_blog() is faster now)
  • Long term goal: better support for multiple networks
  • Should set up a team for handling multisite tickets in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.

Tom Wilmot: How WP Businesses can Give Back

Action item: Mailing list for agencies to combine resources on contributing

  • Many businesses want to give back
  • Agencies might be good at tack

Mike Adams: JS

Action item: Blog more on make/core under JS tag

  • Why are people less proficient in JS
  • Codex and handbook improvements
  • More unit tests

Daryl Koopersmith: CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. future

Action item: roadmap for core to allow for those other use cases, and have theme review team recommend using the customizer in core

  • Not just in theme switching but outside that
  • Post preview, site creation, onboarding

Michael Fields: Pain when theme switching

Action item: Push findings to community and make plugin to bulk associated featured images to post, and core fix for widgets

  • Widgets get lost
  • Featured images might be required but missing

Mitcho: Plugin performance and security

Action item: Individual plugin reviews on 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/, and Example of a bad plugin, checking of syntax errors pre commit

  • We really need three approaches: education, reviews, automation
  • Capture the flag competition?

Simon Wheatley: Abandoned plugins

Action item: Discuss and define policy for taking over a plugin by another author

  • Difficulty of reaching plugin authors
  • Forking plugins
  • Merging patches
  • Support levels for plugins? Bug, product, user queries?
  • Advertise plugins for adoption
  • Recognize a plugin as a fork

Sara Cannon: WordPress and Women

Action item: Positive code of conduct, encourage women to speak at local meetups

  • General tech problem, not just WP
  • WP Community better than most communities
  • Still want to have a positive code of conduct

Aaron Jorbin: Meetups

Action item: MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizers made authors on make/events

  • Could share remote programming
  • What programs work and which don’t?
  • Sustaining membership

Peter Chester: Updates

Action item: differentiate between security, major, minor releases

  • Opt in vs opt out
  • Plugin or theme upgrades
  • Security vs major vs minor
  • Ability to do rollback painlessly
  • APIs to trigger an upgrade
  • Plugins reverted when WSOD on upgrade
  • File verification
  • Data migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies.
  • Plugins specify major/minor
  • More information on make/core — point by point plan