Shackling a free market: WordPress canonical plugins

[hallsofmontezuma]

As we all know canonical/core plugins may be introduced to WordPress in the not too distant future. We've had discussions and debates over what to call them, but not much has been publicly discussed about the actual merits of having this new designation.

Jay has written a post about canonical plugins over at his blog. It's long, but an interesting read.

Personally, I don't think of the "free market" of plugins that we currently have so much in the commercial sense, as in the freedom. I understand and appreciate the predicament new WordPress users are in when they go to find functionality and see 7000+ plugins in the repository, no knowing which ones fit their needs, or are even still working, or even that some may not work. My main concern is that with the socialization of plugins, other developers of plugins in that field may suffer reduced innovation and motivation.
Thoughts?

[andreasnrb]

POsted this on Jays blog also

We don’t really know very much about which plugins will be canonical. I think some plugin called healthcheck is the first one out.
People have expressed fear that WordPress will loose user because themes and plugins go commercial.
Personally I think it is far more likely that WordPress will loose its upcomming developer base with the introduction of more canonical plugins.
WordPress and its leadership has basically started competing with the rest of the developers that does not visit the Dev Chat on thursdays.

[andrea_r]

If there were going to be a couple dozen canonical/core plugins for everything you would ever need, then there might be cause for concern.

But the idea behind it is for something like (pulling this out of my hat) a twitter plugin. there are *thirty* twitter plugins in the repo. A new user has no idea where to start there. A core twitter plugin would have these advantages:

- a team of people working on it, instead of some guy in his spare time
- a core dev looked the code over for vulnerabilities
- guaranteed to work on upgrades because someone official has an eye on it

Now, we could argue that more choice is better, but - REALLY? 30 plugins, where half of them do the *exact same thing* is not a real choice. Added bonus is the developers will be able to work more closely with other developers - not in isolation. They are planning on making it easier to do that for devs or those who wish to dev. You know, sharing knowledge & learning from one another?

BuddyPress, for example, is a *perfect* one to look to. No, it's not going to be bundled, but it is worked on (a lot), not going anywhere (but up), and core devs have given it a look-over. oh, and it's free. A win for users.

on the commercial side, this still leaves room for it. Even with BP, there are paid plugins for features that haven't been added to it yet. one dev can often get something out real quick & sell it to those who want it now and can't afford to wait, so they'll pay for it.

Let's take another example: say a contact form was a core plugin or even bundled in. Would this put gravity forms out of business? Probably not for a long, long time - if ever. There's plenty of notice for devs, enough so that if Carl did ever have to adjust things, he'd have plenty of warning & time. And there are always people who are willing to pay devs direct for better assurances of paid support (not guaranteed with core plugins either).

I do take a bit of umbrage with the post's tone of "It's the American way in a capitalist society, darn it!" We're not all American. The Internet is global, and so are many WordPress users. We're not all interested in capitalizing it as much as possible. And there are some plugins that died an early premature death (podpress anyone?) that could have been prevented had they been a small team with an official "approved" stamp.

edit:

WordPress and its leadership has basically started competing with the rest of the developers that does not visit the Dev Chat on thursdays.

Actually, I think they're trying to make it *easier* for those working in isolation to become closer to the project, and work on their own projects with more help. There's no preventing anyone from still going off on their own.

Jeez, considering the amount of complaints I've seen about the plugin repo being full of too many outdated & duplicate plugins, you'd think those same critics would like this idea. Which was put forth to partly help exactly that.

[wpmuguru]

BuddyPress is the first core/canonical plugin. BP was mentioned as an example of a canonical plugin in a presentation (or blog post) about 2 months ago. (Sorry, I don't remember where the source reference is.)

BuddyPress has created an entire community around it where people are building on it. So, I don't see core plugins as a doom and gloom thing.

[andreasnrb]

If there were going to be a couple dozen canonical/core plugins for everything you would ever need, then there might be cause for concern.

Its the idea behind it, that causes concern. We don't know anything about the plans really. Nor the criterias, nothing. Everything seem to be done on a whim. The idea for Healthcheck becomming canonical was introduced to me at least in the Dev Chat. And it took like 10 seconds.

But the idea behind it is for something like (pulling this out of my hat) a twitter plugin. there are *thirty* twitter plugins in the repo. A new user has no idea where to start there. A core twitter plugin would have these advantages:

- a team of people working on it, instead of some guy in his spare time
- a core dev looked the code over for vulnerabilities
- guaranteed to work on upgrades because someone official has an eye on it

None of those positives are really anything that comes with only canonical. A better WP plugin directory and better social tools. Look at open source on GitHub and expand on that.

Now, we could argue that more choice is better, but - REALLY? 30 plugins, where half of them do the *exact same thing* is not a real choice. Added bonus is the developers will be able to work more closely with other developers - not in isolation. They are planning on making it easier to do that for devs or those who wish to dev. You know, sharing knowledge & learning from one another?

Core/Canonical has nothing to do with this really. You act like canonical is the only way to fly.

BuddyPress, for example, is a *perfect* one to look to. No, it's not going to be bundled, but it is worked on (a lot), not going anywhere (but up), and core devs have given it a look-over. oh, and it's free. A win for users.

Andy Peatling was employed by Automattic then the idea came for BuddyPress to become canonical. I don't think that BuddyPress is a very good example of the way to go.

on the commercial side, this still leaves room for it. Even with BP, there are paid plugins for features that haven't been added to it yet. one dev can often get something out real quick & sell it to those who want it now and can't afford to wait, so they'll pay for it.

This isn't really what I have any concern with.

Let's take another example: say a contact form was a core plugin or even bundled in. Would this put gravity forms out of business? Probably not for a long, long time - if ever. There's plenty of notice for devs, enough so that if Carl did ever have to adjust things, he'd have plenty of warning & time. And there are always people who are willing to pay devs direct for better assurances of paid support (not guaranteed with core plugins either).

It would make it much much harder for them though. Which provider would you use. Almighty WordPress.org & Automatic Matt or a single website with fairly unknown people. One plugin free the other one costs money. But being free aint really the problem in this case. Its the backing of the free plugin that is the problem.

I do take a bit of umbrage with the post's tone of "It's the American way in a capitalist society, darn it!" We're not all American. The Internet is global, and so are many WordPress users. We're not all interested in capitalizing it as much as possible. And there are some plugins that died an early premature death (podpress anyone?) that could have been prevented had they been a small team with an official "approved" stamp.

I'm swedish and by democratic/liberal people I would probably called a socialist by americans due to my political views. But I still have a problem with this approach.

Actually, I think they're trying to make it *easier* for those working in isolation to become closer to the project, and work on their own projects with more help. There's no preventing anyone from still going off on their own.

Putting a stamp on it ain't gonna change that. Its the infrastracture that needs to change. The whole freaking plugin directory sucks from this standpoint. It just plain sucks. And the leadership of the wp project also needs to change its attitude to things. Whatever the leadership is. Its too hidden for my taste.

Jeez, considering the amount of complaints I've seen about the plugin repo being full of too many outdated & duplicate plugins, you'd think those same critics would like this idea. Which was put forth to partly help exactly that.

I don't have any problems with that. Its yet again an infrastracture problem and canonical aint gonna change that.

Who will be the gatekeepers for canonical plugins. Will there be any? Who will be in charge of the overall scheme of things etc. To much gray areas and I don't like gray. I'm purple person.

[andrea_r]

Dude, they're still figuring all this out themselves.

[andreasnrb]

Well problem is they have already started to implement it. And we know nothing really.

[hallsofmontezuma]

I could be way off, but like you mentioned Andrea_r, from what I understand a justification is that when an inexperienced WordPress user looks for a plugin for particular Twitter functionality, they see Twitter Tools, TweetMeme, Twitter for WordPress, Twitter This, etc etc etc and could certainly be benefited should there be an Automattic TwitterPress plugin that is unlikely to be developed by someone who doesn't know what they're doing, abandoned, etc.
If the only cause for concern is that GravityForms may lose sales or go out of business when there's and official FormPress, then I would be fine with that. (No offense to GravityForms, I use and love the plugin.) The problem I see is the problem that exists whenever the governing body (Automattic in this case) socializes a particular industry. When the official TwitterPress comes out, we'll risk losing the innovation that goes into Tweetmeme, Twitter Tools, and the others. When FormPress comes out, we'll risk Cforms II and Contact Form 7 being dropped, when Oliver and Takayuki decide their contributions just aren't worth the hard work anymore. And yes, we'll risk Carl no longer being motivated to make a comprehensive and well-written GravityForms, if the canonized FormPress makes it so that people will tend to not use it.

[hallsofmontezuma]

Jeez, considering the amount of complaints I've seen about the plugin repo being full of too many outdated & duplicate plugins, you'd think those same critics would like this idea. Which was put forth to partly help exactly that.

Yes, the plugin repository needs to be trimmed, but I personally feel this is the wrong solution. In a dev chat some number of months ago, I and a few others volunteered to manually go through and weed out obviously broken and unusable plugins, so that they could either be removed or at least put into a different category. At the time it seemed well received, but I guess the idea eventually faded.

A better WP plugin directory and better social tools

Andreasnrb, I've been begging for a better plugin directory for ages. The result? A faulting ratings system. (Add to that the other faulty ratings system and the faulty downloads/popularity counter.)

[andreasnrb]

...

What you say is my concern as well. The whole innovation thing.
But I think they are trying to solve an directory design problem with this introduction of corepses. None of the arguments are that well thought. Improve the directory and you'll improve for the users.
What problems are they really trying to solve with this?
Developers feeling leftout, plugins being discontinued, users being confused, improve code quality etc.
Sometimes I feel the whole wordpress organisation is one big black box with a magic button that aint connected to anything.