This edition of WordPress Weekly featured a special interview with the WordPress project leader, Matt Mullenweg. In this interview we asked a wide variety of questions. Some of which were mine while most of them came from you, the listeners of the show. It was great to get Matt back on the show again and I hope we can do this every three or four months just to talk WordPress. Here are the list of questions we covered during the show.
With Prologue 2 now publicly unveiled can you give us an overview as to what this theme is and how it’s different from Prologue 1?
Can you tell us about the 100 hour CMS Showdown event that took place at SxSW?
What is the process one must go through in order to patch a bug, complete a ticket and get it into the core of WordPress?
Question from Technocrank – Does it make sense to get involved with open source software projects in general?
What was your original vision for WordPress? In your opinion, has the software reached that vision and if so, what is your vision for the WordPress of the future?
Does you feel that WordPress already has the functionality it needs to be a good CMS or are some things still missing? If so, does you see them making it into core in the near future?
What is the state of the entire WordPress project? (WordPress Ideas, WordPress support forum, WordPress documentation project, etc.)
I’ve noticed that in most of your keynote sessions, you now include a section at the end regarding the license that WordPress is filed under. Is this part of a new strategy to educate WordPress users about the GPL license?
Can you give use your stance on selling GPL compliant themes or plugins. Is WordPress.org going to support commercial GPL Themes in some other way or what’s up with commercial GPL products and WordPress.org?
Do you feel that the GPL is the perfect license for WordPress or is it just the “most suitable” right now? Would they switch from GPL to something else if there was another license coming out that was more specific about webbased applications and code that doesn´t have to be compiled?
WordPress calls itself a “Publishing Platform” and many people use WordPress as a complete content management system. What features do you foresee being added in the future that will further extend the “CMS” capability of WordPress?
What benefits and features are coming to WP.org 2.8?
Apparently improvements are being made to widgets, “Improved Widget user interface”. Can you describe those improvements and how they will affect WP Users and/or theme developers?
Ok, what about the Theme installer/updater. How does that work?
What benefits are there for the core of WordPress to use Simple Pie instead of MagPie RSS?
Hooks are being added, Users, Categories, Link Categories, etc. Please explain what benefit these will add.
Will greater flexibility be added to roles and capabilities within the admin? For example – the ability to create custom roles?
Why not incorporate more of the commonly used SEO features into the WP core?
What feature are you most excited about within the WordPress software?
What is Automattic doing next as a company, and how has its continued acquisitions helped both the company and the WordPress community?
Are there any WordPress community members that deserve special recognition from the community that you don’t think are getting it as much as they should?
What is your fav plugin?
Ad Copy:
This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by, WebDevStudios.com. WebDevStudios is a website development company specializing in WordPress support and development services. Contact them today for help with your WordPress powered website.
WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:
Each week from now on, I’ll be featuring a new listener poll question on WPTavern.com The poll is located in the sidebar on the right hand side of the site.
Last weeks poll question was: Is Blogging dying because of Facebook, Twitter, etc?
Because of the interview, we didn’t have a chance to go over the poll so it’s been extended by a week.
This Weeks Poll Question Is: Is Blogging dying because of Facebook, Twitter, etc?
WordPress Trivia Question:
How long has Matt been a member of WordPress.org?
WordPress Trivia Answer:
6 Years. We was the first registered member in 2003.
Announcements:
We will be interviewing Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com on May 1st, 2009.
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Friday May 1st, 2009 8P.M. EST
Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe
Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 18 Minutes
Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode52.mp3
Listen To Episode #52:
[...] that’s just scratching the surface. Check out the show notes over on WPTavern for the full list of questions that where brought up, and/or to listen to the episode. I’d [...]
great show. the CMS Showdown review was very informative. the best part was when you said ‘hunker down.’ actually, there were better parts than that, but i love a good ‘hunker down.’
@ShelbyLife – Thanks Shelby. The showdown was an interesting tidbit in the show and I thought it was great to hear Matts thoughts on what it was like to develop something using the software instead of trying to make it better.
This was a fascinating episode. Thanks so much Jeffro, Matt, and everyone. I listened to this plugged into the car stereo on a roadtrip last weekend. Rewound several parts to listen again for the detailed remarks from quiet-fast speaking MM.
@Dgold -Glad you enjoyed the episode. I think this makes three interview now I’ve conducted with Matt :)