Re the ongoing #WordPress drama, I will just observe that when you are a platform vendor, the number one most important thing you have to provide is stability.
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Re the ongoing #WordPress drama, I will just observe that when you are a platform vendor, the number one most important thing you have to provide is stability. Stability is more important than anything else. More important than features, more important than license, more important than price.
People who build on a platform are betting time and money on it, so they don't want it to change without warning. It ruins their investment. And it makes them feel stupid for having bet on your platform.
This is why when successful platform vendors change things, they do so slowly and with lots of advance notice. YEARS of advance notice.
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@jalefkowit Wordpress dot org is not a platform vendor. It at most provides a repository for automatic updates. I think WP Engine should take this as an opportunity to send a PR for adding the ability to use a different server to pull the updates from (assuming such functionality doesn't exist yet).
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@jalefkowit I'm sorry, was this a post about WordPress or VMware?
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@robotalien WordPress dot org operates the plugin repository on behalf of the community. The whole community relies on it. That is a platform.
If they'd made an announcement along the lines of "we're terminating your access to the plugin repository effective a year from now, go build your own," that would have been one thing. But they didn't. They revoked one host's access to it without warning.
If you think a new plugin repository is something you could stand up overnight, you should go sell your mad skillz to WP Engine. I'm sure they'd appreciate the help.
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@ocdtrekkie An evergreen post, admittedly
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@jalefkowit I agree that the way Wordpress dot org handled it was terrible, but they seem to have good reasons for this. If you build your entire business upon a free open source project and you make it a policy to not contribute to it despite your pledges, then you shouldn't be surprised if it sours your relationship with the project. WP Engine isn't a normal case. They were exceptionally against contributing to the open source project they relied upon.
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@robotalien If the policy is "you have to pay a certain amount to the WordPress Foundation to retain access to the plugin repository," they should have rolled that policy change out deliberately, and they should have designed it in a way that would cover all cases, not just WP Engine. Like, anyone with annual revenue over $X has to contribute $Y. Then give the community a comment period to let you tune those figures in a way that is the least burdensome.
If your policy only applies to one company that particularly annoys you, it's not a policy at all. It's just you wielding a club.