Are WordPress.org culturally anti-business?

[JohnM]

Chip: In my opinion, your continued, ardent defense of WordPress.org's policy leaves no other alternative. Outside of a debate class and defense law, it is not human nature to defend positions with which we do not agree.

You got me now, I`m not human, youre waisting your time discussing with a bot ;)

I was told again today by someone else that Matt is working on a post that will address the repository guidelines

If I`m to anticipate Matt`s post I believe he will move closer to the Drupal model, hence the speaks about canonical plugins and collaboration on these. In the Drupal community module contributions may be rejected if they are considered as functionality duplicates, with an encouragement to rather collaborate on existing extensions.

In Drupal theres usually a dialog before a contribution is accepted:

More than 80% of all current CVS applications currently go through a dialogue whereby the CVS administrator attempts to clarify the potential applicant's intended contribution.

[carlhancock]

If I`m to anticipate Matt`s post I believe he will move closer to the Drupal model, hence the speaks about canonical plugins and collaboration on these. In the Drupal community module contributions may be rejected if they are considered as functionality duplicates, with an encouragement to rather collaborate on existing extensions.

In Drupal theres usually a dialog before a contribution is accepted:

While I don't mind plugins being reviewed for inclusion so much, as long as it's done fairly, I am not a fan of the Drupal model.

I think rejected a plugin because it does the same thing as another plugin is unfair to users who would rather choose which plugins they use. If a shopping cart plugin exists and i'm not allowed to add another shopping cart plugin to the repository because one already exists, how is that a good thing for the community?

Just because it does the same thing as another plugin doesn't mean it doesn't do it better, or quicker, or that it isn't easier to use.

I think the WordPress community is much different than the Drupal community. Plugin authors are less likely to collaborate and instead work on their own projects as they see fit. Good or bad, thats how it is.

I'm sure if I approached the developer of Contact Form 7 or cforms and pitched working on their plugin with them and tried selling them on what I think the plugin should do... it wouldn't go over well.

They do their thing, we do ours... the users can decide what they want to use.

Variety is the spice of life.

[Jeffro]

Looks like this topic regarding the policies and such was slated to be discussed at this weeks developers meeting but apparently, there is not much to discuss. Even the requirements check plugin is actually cited as an example of something that won't be in.

http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2009/08...v-chat-discus/

[Rarst]

Looks like this topic regarding the policies and such was slated to be discussed at this weeks developers meeting but apparently, there is not much to discuss. Even the requirements check plugin is actually cited as an example of something that won't be in.

http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2009/08...v-chat-discus/

From link:

against the spirit

Why am I not surprised... Why have rules, guidelines and discussion if you have spirit to explain everything. :\

[JohnM]

@Carlhancock. I agree about the Drupal model, but I believe there will be "Drupal like"changes when it comes to:

a) canonical/collaborative plugins for 3rd party services
b) new tools for co-maintaining projects
c) new tools for abandoned projects to assign new devs without changing plugin name.

[Jeffro]

So I've just read through this entire thread again and ouch, my head hurts. However, despite all of the guidelines and what have you, there is one issue that depending on the day I either fall on one side of the fence or the other and that is

promote things that violate WordPress' license on your site. Themes from sites that support non-GPL (or compatible) themes

This has nothing to do with the GPL. It's just part of a larger policy and has already been argued as the theme repository over reaching its boundaries to control what can be displayed and said on a theme authors website. Some days I think this is wrong, other days I think this has to be done so the theme repository doesn't have a bunch of author links pointed back to commercial sites therefor, using the theme repository as nothing more than part of their follow through marketing strategy.

It's also worth noting that GPL is not the only license a theme can have when submitted to the repopsitory. The theme can have any one of these licenses since they are GPL compatible.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/licens...atibleLicenses

There are so many cool things being done in the WordPress community both GPL and Non GPL. However, in order to get in close with the inner circle of WordPress and if you plan on making any business relationships with the guys upstairs, you have to jump on the GPL bandwagon which unfortunately, has a way of controlling what you can say as well as what you can advertise. Give and take I suppose.