The code behind WordPress.org is open source and GPL licensed, so if Automatic decided to shutter it, I'm sure it would be immediately forked and continue to receive maintenance (albeit perhaps not as thoroughly as before)
I mean this is all hypothetical but .org is a gateway to their larger paid ecosystem, a loss leader I suppose you could call it. A way to get you hooked pardon the WP pun. Not sure I see it going away since it's open source.
ClassicPress has already done this fork and their rapid growth has surprised me. I believe instead that Matt will merge org and com and that we will pay a monthly use fee for cloud-based WP services, while the dev theme community will fade, as will plug-in devs. Their investors want huge returns like all investors. It is the obvious path forward and a reason Matt makes decisions without regard to the ecosystem of devs, their schedules and more.
That scenario presents a fracture which could definitely put the project in jeopardy. The soundness of the Wordpress ecosystem is what is keeping it afloat more than the literal code.
My assumption would be that there'd be a fight over the name?
I'm pretty sure it would be forked, too, but do you think you'd continue to use it for websites or would you look at a different solution?
Majority of users would continue to use most popular fork. Similar situation happen with Joomla predeccesor Mambo in 2005 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla
The name is owned by the WordPress Foundation which honestly addresses the issues of the .com coming and going away. You might want to read up on that.
Thank you so much! I hadn't heard of the WordPress Foundation before, despite having worked with WP for years.
Of course, this post IS about speculation and not necessarily rooted in fact so in the spirit of that, what would you use if you couldn't use WordPress anymore?
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
The code behind WordPress.org is open source and GPL licensed, so if Automatic decided to shutter it, I'm sure it would be immediately forked and continue to receive maintenance (albeit perhaps not as thoroughly as before)
I mean this is all hypothetical but .org is a gateway to their larger paid ecosystem, a loss leader I suppose you could call it. A way to get you hooked pardon the WP pun. Not sure I see it going away since it's open source.
But the point of this article is what would you do if it did. How it happens isn't really a concern; just what would you do?
Would you support a forked version? Look at a different alternative? Where do you see the future of CMSs that aren't WordPress?
ClassicPress has already done this fork and their rapid growth has surprised me. I believe instead that Matt will merge org and com and that we will pay a monthly use fee for cloud-based WP services, while the dev theme community will fade, as will plug-in devs. Their investors want huge returns like all investors. It is the obvious path forward and a reason Matt makes decisions without regard to the ecosystem of devs, their schedules and more.
So is ClassicPress a fork of WP from before Gutenberg?
Yes.
classicpress.net/
Thanks! :D
That scenario presents a fracture which could definitely put the project in jeopardy. The soundness of the Wordpress ecosystem is what is keeping it afloat more than the literal code.
I agree with that. There are a lot of businesses that depend on WordPress.
My assumption would be that there'd be a fight over the name?
I'm pretty sure it would be forked, too, but do you think you'd continue to use it for websites or would you look at a different solution?
Majority of users would continue to use most popular fork. Similar situation happen with Joomla predeccesor Mambo in 2005
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla
Very good point! WordPress also has the advantage of being used in over 50% of websites today... that's a lot of pressure to keep it going.
How come you folks do not know of the fork, ClassicPress???
Was busy with frontend and graphql CMSs, thank you
Haha there are so many things out there, I'm not surprised I had never heard of ClassicPress!
The name is owned by the WordPress Foundation which honestly addresses the issues of the .com coming and going away. You might want to read up on that.
Thank you so much! I hadn't heard of the WordPress Foundation before, despite having worked with WP for years.
Of course, this post IS about speculation and not necessarily rooted in fact so in the spirit of that, what would you use if you couldn't use WordPress anymore?