I must admit, I am fairly new to the wordpress ecosystem. I started a website in 2018 and the main reason I chose wordpress was the amount of plugins and themes available.
I never once really gave much thought about "wordpress core" unless it was a security upgrade..
I see these fights between Matt and WPEngine and now understand how essentially millions of dollars is being spent to continuously update the software.
For me I started using WordPress not because of what it could become but because of what it already was. If wordpress never had another update again other than security patches and occasional bug fixes I would be perfectly fine with that.
I guess maybe I am in the minority. I am using wordpress for my small business and nothing else. I am not constantly updating my webpages and they sit largely unchanged for years.
It just seems strange to me that there is such a huge need for money to be spent on developers for wordpress core when for me I am perfectly content where we are right now.
Does wordpress really need that many developers to keep the software safe or is it strictly to keep adding features?
Edit: Fair points to everyone who replied! Definetly helps me understand more!
I Heard something yesterday about how 80% of the WP code gets replaced/rewritten/updated each year. Seemed kind of crazy, but I’ll be honest I have nothing to compare it to so maybe that is normal.
Then I heard someone else say that a lot of the updates is because much of the code dates back to 2005 or something like that.
I’m with you, for probably 95% of users security updates are all that is needed and as long as the site works leave the main WP stuff alone.
It launched like 15 years before you started using it. Do you think you’d have had what you had if the attitude was ‘well it works lets leave it’?
I appreciate the sentiment but it feels a little ignorant. Beyond security patches, others improve performance, improve the backend, they adjust things to meet standards. The world doesn’t stand still and if any project did it would become obsolete.
Some changes, again security or not, mean that fundamental things need to change that plugins and themes need to adapt to otherwise the developers (and or WP) have to maintain at least 2 versions of their own code.
>I guess maybe I am in the minority.
Exactly. There’s a lot more under the sun than just “small businesses,” and WordPress is the absolute leader precisely because of its updates, which, by the way, are mostly done through TRAC. Those of us collaborating with TRAC are not paid; it’s a free contribution to open source.
Is there a reason why you need to keep maintaining the house ? I mean my parents bought a beautiful BRAND NEW MODEL HOME 45 Years ago.
Why would they need to keep maintaining it ?
I mean why did they treat it for Termites when 2 house over, an army of termites ate that house from the inside out ?
Why do they need to change the roof after 25 years ?
Those PVC Pipes inside the walls ? They should have never replaced them when several of them started gushing water.
When we use a 220 Volt appliance, the wiring in what used to be my bedroom, burnt to a crisp and the fire department had to come and tell us that several wires were thermal. Why did they need to call an electrician to rewire the second floor ?
Come on now. This is exactly what you are saying.
Enhancements and updates to code are good, even if some of the decisions are questionable about _what_ gets into core (looking at you Gutenberg, also lack of media library modernization, missing fields API, etc).
Keeping WordPress stagnant would be awful. It’s good that it’s picking up constant enchancement beyond security patches.
I will say though, that a project at this stage of evolution and market share really, really should have an LTS release option for people.
Biting the hand that feeds you
The majority of the work put into it since 2018 has been to try to complete the renovated “Editor” (Block editor, full site editor, Gutenberg, whatever). It’s not yet finished.
WordPress has probably the largest attack target of any web application in history. People will always try to find a way to compromise it especially since a lot of major players are now using it (the US government).
Because of Woo. Many attacks target WP because lots of sites are using WooCommerce & that’s where the money is. You set up in the middle of that & you have a cash machine. I keep all the sites I admin behind Cloudflare now because of attacks, & I spend too many non-billable hours keeping up with all the security issues.
Things change. WordPress updates adapt.
Questions like this are why the aliens won’t visit us.
