I have four non-monetized plugins I develop, to help with server and DBMS performance. They’re tagged “community supported”. The most popular one has “more than 30,000” users according to the repo stat.
I developed these to “give back” to the open-source community, and to do my little part to save power and carbon footprint.
Three of them have newly developed features pending release of new versions to the plugin repository on https://w.org/
But now this WP-WPE clusterf**k has me wondering whether I should release them that way, or do something different.
Advice? What are other folks in my position doing about this? Should I simply ignore the antics of the Malevolent Dictator For Life and release? Should I work out how to make future auto-updates come from artifacts on GitHub?
Open to any and all suggestions.
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
You can certainly put them on your own website and manage the update system yourself.
For my plugins i simultaneously push to w.org and to a separate public github repository
It’s worth noting that Matt does not consider plugin development to be “giving back”. It must be code and related to core.
If I had plugins on the WordPress repo, I would immediately switch them to my own servers and self-host.
Any new plugins going forward for any WordPress developer should be self-hosted. WordPress has shown you can’t trust the repos.
If you have no plans to monetize or otherwise build off the plugins, I think you’re good to push to the .org repo. People will find them there and use them. Any forks or clones of the repo will likely include them by default.
Make the GitHub repos public as well, if you haven’t already.
If you have future plans for the plugins, I would keep them off of .org personally. You do get some exposure from searches there, but probably better to opt out of the bullshit and start learning how to market and find your own users now.
There are systems that can update plugins from GitHub.
I have a custom updater and license server, and I can share code with you if you’re interested. DM me.
It seems is an opportunity to do several things
1. Do a market place for free WP plugins and make plugins download ban free
2. Make a Fork of WP and renamed WordFree
3. Start building a new CMS that supports WP plugins install
The only losing here is WP as trademark and community
Your plugins are a godsend. They solve real performance issues with WordPress, and I think at least some of them should be part of core.
I hope you’ll continue publishing to wp.org but I understand your apprehension. Regardless of what you choose to do in future, you have my support and I am sure of many others who benefit from your work.
Developers like you are vital for WordPress’s health, and I hope MM realizes that the way he is handling the current matter is making contributing members of the community uneasy.
Uh, unpopular opinion here but maybe you should just go on keep coding plugins and and support the millions of other users who have absolutely no qualms with Matt or Automattic?
1.5 million sites out of 400m sites might be impacted. thats less than 1% – so continue with your work, ignoring the noise
It sounds like you’re in a bit of a tough spot, especially given the recent WP-WPE mess. A lot of devs in your position are exploring alternatives like GitHub for releases and auto-updates, bypassing the WP repo entirely. If your goal is to keep supporting the community while dodging the drama, hosting updates via GitHub or another platform could be a good move.
That said, if the WP repo still gives your plugins the visibility and reach they deserve, maybe it’s worth sticking with it for now and keeping an eye on what others do. Ultimately, it’s about where you feel your work will have the most impact.
I am a plugin and theme developer, and I am not affected by what is going on. I am not hosting with WPE, and I have been using WordPress for more than 15 years. My company is using WordPress on a large scale, and we are using various hosts who don’t brand themselves as WordPress-something.
My advice is keep doing what you’re doing and this, too, will pass.