Summary of Morning Discussions

Notes by Mark Jaquith and Brian Layman

Aaron Jorbin: AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)

Action Item:make 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//accessibility which will talk about successes we’re having and ways people can get involved

  • Also talked about increasing involvement of accessibility experts and ease of testing of patches.
  • Need for default themes to be good examples of accessibility.
  • 2013 should have the #1 goal of accessibility.

Helen Hou-Sandi: UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. in WP Action Item:Review the draft handboook on UI processes, decisions, philosophies and publish it.

  • Talked about communication and how to be collaborative in the development process
  • With a large pool of developers already, how to we attract and retain designers contributors?
  • Discussed pain points & doing weekly summaries on the UI blog.
  • In the P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. posts they will summarize meeting notes but will also present advancements and news and links from around the web for discussion.

Chip Bennett: Theme review team

Action Item:Better document the workflow for theme review to make that process more transparent and consistent.

  • talked about workflow, consistency, timelines

Siobhan McKeown: Improving Handbooks

Action Item:Recent rockstars will be immediately to include non-coders

  • A standard format should exist for the handbooks
  • WordPress.org profiles need to be updated to include many more areas of contribution

Ben Metcalf: Managed WP Hosts

Action Item: Formalize methods of communication between the core teams about problem plugins.

  • The lists of problem plugins that each host has should be communicated with core
  • A standardized definition of “Managed WordPress Hosting” is perhaps needed as it means different things.
  • Discussed WordPress.org/hosting

Mitcho: Making WP global

Action Item:make./global Site with a forum, and

  • Discussed where the international conversations occurs
  • Profiles should list the languages in which people work with

Nacin: i18n improvements

Action Item:Theme updates destroy translation files. This must fixed and a solution is currently under dev now.

  • Languages into core
  • Multibyte into core
  • Will be open sourcing Simon Wheatley’s multilingual WordPress code

Mitcho: Using WordPress as a framework

Action Item:Implement a stability index for our APIs like Node.js and create a development philosophy page on the codex.

  • What is the philosophy of dev in WP cycle & APIs: Should it be users first or devs first?
  • Core use cases or other use cases?
  • New things built into core should be built as a 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 and shipped as a plugin
  • ForWordPress, not BackPress

Peter Chester: Contributing to Core without it being a Full Time Job

Action Item:Put a 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. on P2 themes telling you what to do to contribute to that area

  • Discussed how to not quit your day job and get business buy in to improving the core.
  • Licking a firehose is not a sustainable working model
  • Lots of mailing lists, lots of information. It is too much for a non dedicated dev to fully follow contribute effectively.
  • Could put together teams around components, modularize the communication
  • Core commits rely too much on serendipity. Hard to get a commit through without talking to the right people at the right time.
  • Should architect a workflow to increase efficiency.

Mike Schroeder: Improving Deployments on WordPress

Action Item: Create a codex page that lists the popular ways to deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. and discusses options that are available

  • Two problems: users being able to easily test changes, and roll back. Devs being able to push from localdev to staging to deployment.
  • Files are mostly a solved problem. Talked about GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. and WP Stack. Will partially solve the issue.
  • Content is the main issue at this point.
  • There are probably many solutions available that were not released to public and these should be discussed.

Andrea Rennick: WordPress CodexWordPress Codex Living online manual to WordPress.org https://codex.wordpress.org/

Action Item: A roadmap will be created, separating different use cases for the codex

  • Codex is a mess and a mix of perspectives
  • User, Dev and end user sections need to be seperated
  • No best practices page
  • Too much stuff is missing
  • We should focus on getting data up on the Codex
  • Relates to handbooks

Remkus DeVries: Transparency of the WordPress Foundation

Action Item:Publish make/events subcommittees list

  • The foundation revolves around WordCampWordCamp 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.
  • Discussed WordCamps & Foundation
  • Talked a lot with Andrea about guidelines
  • Better ways to re-word guidelines that make them more clear and explain the reasons behind them
  • Talked about make.wordpress.org/events which started but did not get followed up on

Trent Lapinski: Theme Functionality vs Plugins

Action Item:Codex page for standards, containers for common functionality, better communication

  • Themes sometimes have functionality better suited for plugins

Isaac Keyet: Mobile Apps

Action Item:Make a page that describes the apps, their place in the ecosystem, and their goals (for potential contributors)

  • Different experience from the web
  • built on native device capabilities
  • Offline usage: easier in apps than on web
  • Better communication between 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. devs and mobile devs
  • Weekly chats happening now
  • Moving forums over to wp.org main site
  • Who owns mobile apps and develops them? WP.org? Automattic?
  • It’s okay for “third parties” to have specific functionality in the WP mobile apps.
  • Make it easier to fork the apps for specific hosts.

Alex Mills (Viper007Bond): Plugin dependencies

Action Item:continue the discussion (too long for session)

  • Themes and Plugins both need it

Jared Smith: 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.

Action Item:Improved resources around GPL topics

  • Split licenses were discussed
  • Talked about GPL distribution
  • Spirit of law vs letter
  • User interests vs dev
  • community vs commercial
  • uniform application of guidelines
  • IP protection, copyright, trademark, etc
  • Have businesses embrace the GPL