Reason 1: you can’t beat “free”

This one is pretty obvious: there are plenty of stuff to win, and you might win one. Check out the Sponsors page and peruse the growing list of goodies provided by several benefactors of our community. Vote and one could be yours. Not interested in any prize? Vote anyway, win one and sell it during your next front yard sell!

Reason 2: it’s good for the community

Our community consists in users using products, and authors crafting those products (themes, plugins, tutorials and news sites…). This event is an occasion for users to show their support, admiration, thankfulness or love to makers. Some of the products in our community are commercial and as such require a financial effort, but most are free and don’t get too many feedback on how users are pleased to use them. And anyway this is not about money here: this is about love. Tell makers you love them. Vote for them. And if your favorite product maker is not nominated yet, submit them.

Reason 3: it’s custom post types

That is actually my personal favorite reason why you should register to the site.

A little background information for those who are starting to get lost? WordPress can register different types of posts, and uses internally a few of them: “posts” in the traditional way, “pages” as you know them, but also attachments, revisions and nav menus. Users and authors can also define custom post types (sometimes referred to as CPT) to further extend the way they will manage their content with WordPress.

The 2010 WordPress Honors website makes good use of custom post types, to file Sites, Plugins, Themes and Personalities. You probably have seen a few tutorials already explaining how to implement CPT into your theme or plugin, but if you are not that tech savvy and just want to understand how the end result might look like and work, register and poke around the admin interface. Then, of course, browse the site itself and vote!

There have been a few posts discussing the credit factor and WooThemes concerning the new menu system. Some people think WooThemes deserves more credit while others think that credit has been given where credit was due. Not only did WooThemes get a lot of press when they made the announcement of giving WooNav to the WordPress core team, but I imagine they will be among the list of all of the other contributors receiving props once WordPress 3.0 goes live.

One thing I have not noticed since my foray into the WordPress community is individuals claiming “I did this” and “I did that” as if it put them on a higher place than everyone else. Most contributors have been just fine with props given in the major release posts. Again, I don’t think credit is the main motivator for contributors, it’s just the icing on the cake. I could be wrong though which I hope you’ll tell me in the comments.

I have a few questions I want to ask to the wider community. For starters, is everyone that contributes to WordPress on a level playing field in terms of making the software better, or are certain people better than everyone else? Secondly, what do you consider to be adequate credit given to contributors. Third, if you have previous experience, why do you contribute to the WordPress project? Is it for personal gain or just to make the software better?

The last question I have, do you think the WordPress project would get along just fine if the entire notion of giving props or any credit disappeared. That way, it’s all about the software, not about the people and their egos. Looking forward to reading your feedback.

Why WordPress?
What Would You Change In WordPress?
What Problems Currently Face The WordPress Community?
What Is The Future Of WordPress?

I had the opportunity to participate in this community survey with the question regarding the future of WordPress being my favorite. Here is what I had to say:

WordPress will continue to be used as a platform to do things that go far beyond blogging. As these projects end up in the showcase and acquire press, more people will begin to realize that WordPress is an excellent blogging tool but it’s by far the not only thing it is capable of doing. WordPress will continue to evolve as a framework or a platform that will enable these creative uses of the software. Hopefully one day, when Matt is asked what is WordPress capable of doing, his response will be, anything you can imagine.

You don’t have to concentrate on answering this question in the comments but, I am interested in what your response to that question would be.

The reason I chose WordPress is the same reason I continue to publish content through the software and that is through ease of use.

The publishing process in WordPress was simple when compared to Joomla or Drupal. The process is in a logical order and doesn’t provide 100 different things I should do before I actually hit the publish button. This process has been refined in the two years I’ve been using WordPress so it’s even better today!

Later on in the comments, there is one by Ozh that I whole heartily agree with.

Interesting to see how many different paths lead to the same WP

I have one question for those who have used WordPress for over a year. Is the initial reason you choose to go with WordPress the same reason you continue to use it today or has that reason changed? After you read their responses, feel free to come back and keep the conversation going in the comments.

I hesitate to mention another project on a WordPress focused site but I believe there are lessons that can be learned from how Joomla has handled this situation. Joomla has a site called http://community.joomla.org/. The front page of this site acts as a portal to vital aspects of the project including team member blogs, events, featured articles, translations, etc. It’s as if everything I would need to know or have quick access to is right on the front page housed within this portal.

On the WordPress side of things, you have to dive into the documentation to find the Codex article that discusses WordPress in your language. The site contains one blog, the development blog for announcements specifically dealing with the software. It’s not like the good old days when multiple posts per month covering all aspects of the project would be published here. Now you’re lucky to see two posts or more a month on it. Each WordPress team member has their own blog, most with a WordPress category that is tied into a separate entity called the WordPress Planet that is accessed in the dashboard called Other WordPress News. Not only are the team members added to this site, but so are a number of other projects/sites that are not strictly WordPress related. I realize the team members are busy and some of them contribute to the WordPress project not employed by Automattic but I would like to see more posts published by them focused on the WordPress project. For example, I attend some of the developer chats and I see requests for unit tests or explanations as to how tickets in Trac should be treated yet I don’t see consistent information published to the public explaining this. Sure, the end user facing crowd has no interest in this, but there are a ton of plugin and theme authors as well as enthusiasts who would be. To be frank, I think that if it were not for websites such as Weblogtoolscollection.com and a host of other WordPress centric community sites, a majority of us would have no clue as to the progress of WordPress except for when a release was imminent.

I would love to see is a complete redesign of WordPress.org which served as a portal. A portal that could be visited daily to see posts from team members regarding the project, latest posts in the WordPress forum, upcoming WordCamps, a featured WordPress.TV Video, links to some of the most important pages in the Codex, the 3 or 5 newest themes and plugins added to the repository, etc. This post may be premature though as the best thing that could happen to the site is the redesign, plus the ability to use BuddyPress as a means of creating the collaboration hub of it all. I know the BuddyPress situation is currently being worked on and may end up being a reality some day on WordPress.org but for everything else, there is certainly room for improvement across the board.

What Say you?

First off, what do you think of the current way WordPress.org the project along with the website is laid out? If you had the opportunity, how would you completely restructure the website and team members to turn the site into a collaboration/information hub all about WordPress?

Before I list a few ways of curbing this attitude, I must say that not EVERYONE in the community acts in the ways I described above. I know many of us have donated to plugin authors, have written reviews of plugins to give them exposure, have said thank you, etc. This post is not geared towards you but towards those who seemingly want to have their cake and eat it too.

Saying Thanks – I believe saying thank you is underrated these days. Saying thanks can go a long way in making a plugin author feel good about themselves for their contribution to the community.

Donate – It’s pretty clear to me by now through asking plugin authors and other posts on the subject that there is no way to pay the bills through donations alone. However, donations are often seen as one part of the income generating strategy so whatever comes through is seen as a benefit. I’ve donated over $100.00 so far in my time spent with WordPress which I know is small compared to what these plugins have enabled my sites to achieve but I’m astonished at the amount of people who have not donated any cash at all.

Exposure – What plugin author does not like exposure? This can be done any number of ways such as a written review, a podcast dedicated to plugins, links to new plugin releases as WeblogToolsCollection.com is known for and overall, just spreading the word about the plugins you enjoy using.

Contribute Back – To support a plugin authors initial contribution to the community, we as end users can return the favor by beta testing new versions, submitting bug reports, helping out with translations, and helping to provide support.

Wrapping Up:

At this stage of the game, I think it’s unfair to provide a blanket statement covering the entire WordPress community as thankless. However, I know many plugin authors who are holding back from releasing their work to the community because they know they will be inundated with support, demands, etc, all for no price.

I think we sometimes have to sit back and remember that WordPress is a piece of great software but it doesn’t have every feature under the sun, that is where plugins come in. These plugins are generally patches, feature enhancements, or ways of providing functionality that are better than the core offering. Plugins are one of the thriving aspects of WordPress that bring people to the platform because if you can’t do something with WordPress, there is at least 1-3 plugins that will. I would really hate to see plugin authors jump ship from the platform simply because of the way the community treats them.

The WordPress platform and its end users have nothing to gain from having this happen so please, lets all do our part to show plugin authors the same love we show for WordPress.

*note* If you know of any other ways to help the situation, I’m all ears.

However, despite the overall article being a great read, question number five that Andrew raises is the one that continuously has me thinking. In question five, Andrew asks what is it that you value? He then gives eight different perspectives which I find to be very interesting. Here is one of them:

Do you agree that: A person that makes a plugin freely available is appropriately compensated by the thousands of other plugins and themes that are available to him for free?

Just that thought alone was enough to stop me in my tracks and really think about it. I wanted to share this article to the WordPress community because I think Andrew did a great job raising some interesting points worthy of more discussion.

I really feel as though this two hour recording is the most important recording I’ve made yet and is the biggest contribution I have made so far, back to the community. If there was one podcast that you should listen to as it relates to WordPress, the GPL, Matt’s involvement with Automattic and the Project, this would be it. Special thanks to Matt Mullenweg for agreeing to come on the show to address all of the issues that were presented to him by me.

To get a sample of the information discussed in this episode, here are the list of questions that I asked Matt. After this list, he took questions from anyone that asked them either by those who called in or sent them in the chat.

Why were those themes removed from the repository and if you look back at the situation now, do you think you made a mistake by not making a public post about the removals?

Can you explain why the new guideline was added to the theme repository?

Why is it that so many people within the inner circle of the WordPress community believe you and Automattic don’t want anyone else profiting through or around WordPress?

In your opinion, do you think that premium themes have actually benefited the community by way of furthering the overall development of WordPress themes?

In a recent conversation, I saw you describe premium themes as propietary and how you felt that was a better word than premium. Why is that?

How many of these debates and the way things are done are a result of their not being a court case to go by?

Does it bother you at all to see countless debates on various WordPress theme author sites about the GPL and what is and not compliant with it?

Drupal and Joomla have decided the commercial stuff is okay but why not WordPress?

In November of 2007 hot off the heels of WordCamp Argentina, news came out about a possible theme marketplace where people sold themes through the marketplace and the theme author as well as Automattic each recieved a cut of the profits. Was that your way of trying to help premium theme authors and has their been any progress on the idea?

The Drupal community has debated this GPL/Premium/Theme issue for a while. And a solid understanding has come from it:

A theme is made up of several files – template files (ending in .php), CSS, images and JavaScript. The template files are considered a part of Drupal, which is licensed under the GPL, which means they are not restricted in their redistribution. You are free to share the .php files so others can benefit from them. However, the rest of the theme – images, CSS and JavaScript – is independent from Drupal and owned by us and licensed by you for one website per purchase. You may not publish or share these parts of the themes with anyone else. Please review our EULA for full details. (Taken from a Drupal Theme Developers page)

When the notion of making money by selling themes pops up at WordCamps, you are quick to explain the WordPress.com business model of selling services and building support/value around the prodcut but this model will not work for everyone. What is a premium theme author to do?

I’ve spoken to a few premium theme authors and they tell me that because of the GPL, nothing stops someone from picking up Brian Gardners themes, changing the footer link and then undercutting his business by selling support at a cheaper price. Is that a valid argument?

Redistributing paid themes for free, which is ok under the GPL thus, rendering the business model of selling themes useless, as I understand it. Yet, that hasn’t happened and I wonder if that is because most end users are not aware of the GPL, all they see is the single-use multi-use licenses attached to themes

Is there a way where premium theme companies such as iThemes and you or Automattic can come to a compromise?

Lets say I have a template generator that outputs GPL themes, but has premium features. It could be used to create freebie themes which would be eligible to be in the repository, but since the generator outputs themes with a link back to my site which promotes the premium services, which in turn may be used for creating themes suitable for the repository, but again those themes have a link back to my site.

Is it true that the notion of Child themes which appears to be gaining momentum can be viewed as a loophole as far as the GPL is concerned considering these are themes which are purele CSS and Image based?

At what point do you stop accepting good themes that comply with the GPL because of a connection an author has with commercial themes. How far does it go.

If WP.org is about the community, why are decisions made unilaterally, rather than by the community?

Just out of curiosity, do you get annoyed sometimes by people blaming or mentioning Automattic for the decisions or things that take place for WordPress.org? I mean, Automattic and the WordPress project are two separate things.

What is your role with automattic and what is your role with the wordpress.org project and is their ever a conflict of interest between the two?

In your opinion, how far does the GPL go? CSS, images, phpfiles,

Why have you not used the WordPress development blog to bring forth the issues of GPL and various other aspects of the project?

This whole show has pretty much been dedicated to themes but how does all of this effect plugins, the plugin repository and such?

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Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 11 Minutes

Download The Show: InterviewWithMatt.mp3

Listen To The Special Interview With Matt Mullenweg:

Chat log from those who participated in the chatroom: Special Interview Chat Log

At the time of this writing, there were 261 tickets remaining. Each ticket costs $20.00 and nets you the following:

• coffee and munchies both mornings
• lunch both days
• t-shirts to take home (or to wear one or both days!)

So far, the list of confirmed speakers are as follows:

• Matt Mullenweg
• Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell
• Alexander Muse
• Aaron Brazell
• Lorelle VanFossen
• Mark Ghosh
• John Pozadzides

Thats right folks, your very own Mark Ghosh will be in attendance as a speaker. I actually purchased my admission ticket the other night. Now all I have to do is work out the logistics. I’m looking forward to meeting Mark in person for the first time and it will be interesting to see all of these people who make WordPress what it is, outside of the blogosphere. I’m also looking forward to meeting Ronald Huereca as he will also be in attendance. You can see a full list of attendees that have registered thus far by clicking here. If you plan on going, please register as soon as possible so Charles has a good head count as to the amount of people that will be attending the event.