What happens if, in the future, the powers behind WordPress decide to prevent ClassicPress installs from downloading plugins and plugin updates from the repo?
I’m not a WordPress core contributor so not sure whether it’s technically possible - maybe others can answer that.
But with their aggressiveness in deleting ClassicPress-related support posts from the repo (afraid of a little competition it seems), I can see them wanting to lock out ClassicPress entirely if they can find a way to do it.
I guess that won’t be a problem the SVN where the plugins code is hosted is public .It’s in the interest of the authors to have more installs possible.
Guess is their (of some) initial reaction, as time goes by guess it would be different.
I don’t think it would come to this. It would be a very un-open-source-y attitude and it could potentially harm innocent end-users, such as in cases where plugin/theme are in need of security updates. That could be a PR nightmare if done with vindictive intent. I do feel confident that WordPress will do the right thing, though, and not block ClassicPress sites from updating their plugins and themes as updates roll out.
I posted to Twitter about how you can get moderated/banned for mentioning ClassicPress on the WordPress forums. One of the mods responded, “Not so…” with a link to this document which states they won’t delete anything…unless they think it’s nefarious. But, that word choice is interesting. I’m feeling pretty sure not a single one of the moderated/deleted posts would have qualified as being nefarious by the actual definition of the word, so the explanation is still fairly nebulous and open to inconsistent interpretation.
Well, I have DEFINITELY been “banned” from their support groups… I got VERY VOCAL about it back in late spring & early summer… they cannot STAND any divergent viewpoints!
I would say don’t worry about this possibility too much. If they do something like that there can surely be a work around/replication. If they don’t block, then spending zero time on it will have been very efficient.
I think as time goes on plugins in the .org repo will naturally become more block based. I think ClassicPress will have to look at hosting their own theme/plugin repos to help support the core CMS.
This would be completely contrary to WP’s public statements about openness and forks.
All code in the WP plugin and theme directories is GPL, and it is already automatically mirrored to multiple places online. It would take a bit of work to switch to an alternative source, but it would definitely be doable.