Now that we have an agreed path for plugins to progress from a research plugin to an official ClassicPress plugin, I am proposing that both Classic Commerce and Classic SEO be moved to official plugin status.
Both have been in active development for some time now and both are progressing well, nearing the point where the first proper release can be made.
It’s clear that they will add considerable value to ClassicPress and that will be welcomed by the community.
I think it’s important to remember that these plugins will become an official part of the ClassicPress family, part of its ecosystem. The committee and the community need to be happy that such plugins adequately reflect the standards and character of ClassicPress.
Practically speaking, this means we’d be moving Classic Commerce and Classic SEO to ClassicPress Plugins · GitHub which is the home for plugins officially supported by ClassicPress.
Not much else would change except for clarifying their status, Tim has been doing an excellent job keeping up with development and releases for these plugins and that would continue.
One thing I would suggest, plugins should be made official once they leave beta and are production ready (1.0). They should remain as research plugins while in development (alpha/beta).
People might assume they are production ready with an “official” label.
I think having a plugin be officially supported but in beta (i.e. clearly heading towards a production-ready release) would also be fine - this demonstrates commitment to a given path, which will help us get more eyes on for testing. We will just want to make this status clear when releases are announced.
The “official” label means that these plugins have been through the research stage, they have demonstrated that they add value to ClassicPress and that they are now worthy of moving to the stage where resources can be committed to help the transition to finished plugin.
By the time a plugin reaches alpha or beta, generally the concept is well formed and the focus is more on development than research. We’ll already have formed a good idea of whether the plugin has demonstrated sufficient value and quality to become an official product.