WordPress 2.7 heavily based on existing plugins

By Miriam Schwab • August 4, 2008 • 22 Comments

Weblog Tools Collection has published an overview of the features in store for us in WordPress 2.7. As I was reading the list, I noticed that many of them them are based on existing popular plugins, like the Google Sitemaps Generator, Better Comments Manager, YATCP (Yet Another Threaded Comments Plugin), and Subscribe to Comments.

I had mixed feelings about this: on the one hand, these plugin authors had enough vision to see a need and fill it with some plugins that became standards for experienced WordPress blog developers. If WordPress makes these features part of the core, than these plugins become legacy and are no longer needed, and all the developers will no longer get recognition for their innovation and leadership in the WordPress community.

On the other hand, these types of developments are par for the course in an open source community, and is what makes the WordPress software so fantastic. The people at Automattic give free rein to the community to develop new features, and then these features are tested by thousands around the world over many years, and “survival of the fittest” helps the community identify the best and most important features to be added to the WordPress core.

The result: one of the best pieces of open source software around, and a celebration of the culture of open source.

What do you think?

Author: Miriam Schwab

Miriam is the friendly CEO of illuminea, a WordPress design and development agency, and Strattic, a static publishing platform for Open Source CMSs. Miriam is a huge fan of WordPress and has been using it for over ten years. In addition, Miriam has organized the past five local Israeli WordCamp conferences.

Murk

My concern is primarily how the upgrade path works for people already using some of these plugins. E.g. If subscribe to comments functionality is in the core, willt he core recognise the existing template/database structures used by virtue of having the plugin.

Will the core say, when the plugin is re-enabled ‘you don’t need that anymore’?

Will existing settings be migrated?

If the plugin is incorporated, I would hope that ‘It’ll just work’. Nevertheless, that’s my concern!
latz

I think Auttomatic should include the code in the core but the development of these part should stay at the plugin authors and maybe they should be put on the Auttomatic payroll for their contributions.
kahi

I think it’s very important to choose carefully and integrate only features that are without doubts useful for almost absolute majority of WP users. Which is IMHO not possible to say about gravatars, mail-way-posting, XML sitemaps or many other things… I’m big fan of the “slim core – strongly pluginized” concept, so I can’t agree with many decisions that were and are going to be made about features additions.
Miriam Schwab

@Murk – your concerns are valid. What indeed will happen to blogs that are running plugins that are no longer needed?

@latz – your idea is very…idealistic. It would be great if the plugin authors could continue to get credit (or even compensation) for their work, but not only do I doubt that Automattic would compensate them, I’m also not sure it’s practical to have so many different people involved in developing the software.

@kahi – thank you for your perspective, especially since I never thought of it that way. On the one hand, I think that many users will appreciate that they won’t have to fiddle with extra plugins and tags in order to add these features; but at the same time I think there is something to keeping the “slim core – strongly pluginized” idea.

Thanks so much for all of your input on this conversation. It’s so interesting to hear what you have to say.
Paul

I agree with the “other hand”, that highly useful and popular plugins becoming part of the WP core is a great thing for the platform. Maybe not all of the plugin devs would agree, but I bet some of them would be relieved to let their plugin go and spend that development time on something new again.

As for what happens with plugins that core functionality replaced, we’ve already had a bit of this with some of the old Tags plugins and the transition was smooth enough.
Stefano, wordpressmania.it

While I thing that not having to install each time the same plugins would be great, I have some concerns about growing of the wp core. Me too I’m a big fan of “slight core” “many plugins”…
So I’m hoping that at least that (new) functionalities will be added as (default) plugins, to as core-functions.
Another way to consider is building different WP distribution: one “core stricly”, others enhanced with various plugin and themes for different uses.
The poeple behind the official Italian WP site (http://www.wordpress-it.it) are doing this with WordPress XXL: I don’t like their choiche of plugins but the idea is smart.
Miriam Schwab

@Stefano, wordpressmania.it: It’s interesting that the Italians have decided to manage WordPress in their own, distinct way. I didn’t know that countries could do that, but I guess if it’s open source, anything’s possible.

Maybe there should be different “flavors” of WordPress that are offered. But there is definitely something to be said for a unified effort.

It would be nice to hear from the WordPress people themselves what they have to say about their choice to expand the core as they are.
Stefano, wordpressmania.it

@miriam: My english it’s quite bad so it’s easy to misunderstad. I try to clarify: isn’t in any way an “expansion” or an “alteration” to the wp core, just some well known plugins pre-copied in the wp-content folder.
I don’t know the details, but it’s not a decision of “manage WordPress in their own,”: they offer the official italian localisation, working strictly with the WP core devs, plus an “extended” zip package where you can find pre-loaded in the wp-content/plugins/ folder some more plugins.
It’s nothing different from the standard wp, only some preloaded plugins. The same does my hosting (DreamHost) with their automated WordPress installation: once installed you find load of pre-installed themes and 4 or 5 plugins.
As I said, I’m not related in any way with the folks at WP Italy, but I see nothing wrong with their XXL packeg, it’s not a fork nor customisation, just some user facilities.

“But there is definitely something to be said for a unified effort.”
I definitely agree with you! I’m in the OpenSource from 10 years and I can’t count the (too) many projects failed ’cause forks, customisation, personal matters, etc…

Stefano
Miriam Schwab

@Stefano – you’re English is very good!

Now I get what you’re talking about! I think that what they’re offering is a nice option for users who don’t want to have to download and install each plugin separately for every WordPress site they build.
Brandon Cox

I’m not a plugin developer, but I’m guessing that if I were, it would be the most flattering achievement should my work be included in the core. I’ve developed sites on Drupal before, and my one complaint is that the module community seems so scattered, random, and inconsistent. Whereas placing the best plugins into the core brings them all in line with a standard of consistency – I see it as a good thing. Also, handing a client one system instead of a partial system that needs a lot of help is a good thing too.
Miriam Schwab

@Brandon Cox: Those are good points about bringing the best plugins in line with certain standards. This is another example of how a unified effort is preferred over a scattered effort.
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Jennifer

I’d much rather install a very trim core installation and then be given the option during installation to install plug-ins which have been given official WP seal of approval. That would force the best plug-ins to become standards compliant, leave the development and credit with the plug-in author and give them big time recognition in return.
Murk

@Miriam – this did make me chuckle:
“@Stefano – you’re English is very good”

you’re -> you are, which is incorrect here (though it sounds the same)…. in this case it should’ve been ‘your’

(I would not have mentioned except that you were responding to someone learning the language, and this is supposed to be helpful to Stefano)
Stefano, wordpressmania.it

@murk, @miriam: LOL
Miriam Schwab

@Murk How embarrassing about my spelling when I’m trying to make someone feel better about their English. If it’s any excuse, I think I wrote that comment way too late at night.

@Stefano As you can see, you can’t take anything I say about English seriously, since I can’t spell.

I think that living in a country where the native language is not English is taking its toll!
Miriam Schwab

@Jennifer: When we build WordPress sites, there are certain plugins that we use for every single site that we feel add basic functionality that is integral to the success of the blog. Google Sitemaps, Feedsmith, Subscribe to Comments and All in One SEO are the best examples of those types of plugins.

The other plugins we add are ones that make the site more pleasant to use, like an admin drop-down menu plugin, or Absolute Comments by Ozh (which I’m using right now to respond to you). I don’t think plugins like these should necessarily become part of the core since it’s a matter of taste rather than necessity.
Murk

Regarding WP, given that we’ve just put in ‘revisioning’, something that’ll have to be watched for is redundant data bloat. MT has apparently been suffering from this:

http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2008/08/07/movable_type_is_eating_my.html
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Gushin

It’s sorta like when Mac OS X has an update and they include something that has been a shareware component in the past, like the Spaces feature.

I used to use a shareware software program for that function, that worked most of the time, but sometimes it failed. Then Apple decided to add it to the core OS.

I guess the difference would be that Apple most likely paid the developer for the right to add it and WordPress is open source and the developer most likely will not be paid for that plugin.

WordPress 2.7 heavily based on existing plugins

Author: Miriam Schwab

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