WordPress news, community news, reviews and more from all over the world
This week was an exciting week for Dutch startup WordProof as they were awarded a €1 Million prize by the European Commission.
With this contest, Europe aims to stimulate the use of blockchain technology to solve social problems. WordProof, founded one year ago, managed to leave 175 participants from all over Europe behind. Which is quite an impressive feat for this young startup.
[Read more…] about WordProof awards €1M grant by European CommissionThere’s an interesting proposal on the Make Core blog by Ian Dunn. The proposal suggests to auto-update all older or equal than 3.7 – the version that introduced auto-updates – WordPress instances to 4.7.
The reason for wanting to do this is actually best summarized by Otto in a comment:
If we simply said “we’re not backporting fixes anymore” and left it at that, then that changes nothing except now we’re intentionally leaving a huge portion of the web vulnerable to undiscovered threats
Samuel “Otto” Wood
Read the rest of the post on the Core blog and weigh in. It’s a bit of a read, but I would include the comments before asking your questions or adding your comments.
The Theme Review Theme announced today that they will shortly be requiring new themes to include keyboard navigation to be built in.
The main goal for this new requirement is to make the themes on WordPress.org have better accessibility features by default. Having keyboard navigation included means you would be able to navigate theme settings and such in the browser without the use of a mouse. This is especially needed for users of alternative input devices who are sighted.
Read more about it at the announcement post.
Google announced the developer preview of Google Site Kit on GitHub. They’re launching it on GitHub first so this way they allow WordPress developers to test drive the plugin and test Site Kit compatibility with other plugins. For now, it’s the easiest way for Google to gather implementation feedback and recommendations for this plugin.
Google’s current implementation of the plugin setup flow requires developer know-how and familiarity with Google Cloud Platform and OAuth verification process. The current setup experience is not the final user experience they plan to make available to WordPress users. Learn more about it on GitHub.
Giving props, for those who are unaware, is where someone who has contributed to open-source code is given acknowledgment. Typically you’ll find these props given within a specific ticket in which a person has contributed a fix for the open ticket. In the WordPress realm, you’ll also find these props at the bottom of a new release post as you can see here in the section called The Squad.
Those who contributed the actual fix are the ones receiving props. But … that’s not very inclusive. [Read more…] about Give props in abundance, not in restraint
Having a commercial version of WordPress alongside a non-profit version has been confusing. Especially to those starting out with WordPress, but not exclusively those new to it. It would be a great win for the WordPress Community if Automattic’s flagship product, WordPress.com, would rebrand itself to Jetpack.com. I have said this, half-jokingly, in the past decade to anyone who would listen. #sorrynotsorry.
But with WordPress.com now allowing for plugins and themes to be activated on their platform, the lines get even more blurry.
Since Automattic is running on venture capital money, at some point it’s going to focus on monetization even more. If you have been paying close attention to how the sign-up between a stand-alone WordPress installation and Jetpack has changed over the last couple of months, you will have noticed. For a brief period, the free option was even hidden in the “Skip for now” button below the pricing table you’re greeted with when you connect Jetpack to your site.
You may have also noticed Automattic opening up their affiliate program. It includes Jetpack, WordPress.com, and everything WooCommerce now. All clear signs that Automattic has made monetization a higher priority in recent months. And judging by a tweet sent out yesterday at the Affiliate Summit, Jetpack is taking a very prominent role:
What’s even more interesting, navigating to the WordPress.com main page–make sure you’re logged out–will show you a WordPress frontpage without any signs of a W. Meaning the WordPress logo. I’m not sure when this changed, but it’s a very clear sign that WordPress.com’s branding is changing.
It’s just pure speculation on my part that this will lead to switching from WordPress.com to Jetpack.com, but I for one would welcome the change. I also think it will help send less of a mixed message for those entering the WordPress Community, Automattic’s affiliate program or both. 😉
Over the holidays, Juliette Reinders Folmer published an interesting article over at 24 Days in December.net that is well worth your attention. Juliette talks about some of the most used projects in the PHP sphere are largely maintained by one person.
And while it’s bad enough that it’s a relatively thankless job for the maintainers, what scares me is this: what will happen if one of them steps down ? Or changes job and won’t get much time from their new employer to continue working on the project ? Or just loses interest ? Or – while we don’t like to think about this -: what will happen if one of them would die ?