THE PENDING DRAFT

WordCamp US – State of the Word 2015

December 7, 2015

Last weekend, the first WordCamp US – the biggest WordCamp ever – was held in Philadelphia and of course Matt Mullenweg gave the annual State of the Word Keynote. He talked about a bunch of things including the upcoming version 4.4 (which brings a lot of interesting stuff like term_meta and support for responsive images using srcset) or changes to how translations for plugins and themes in the repository work and he shared some thoughts about the development Calypso, Automattic’s react-based new interface for WordPress.com as well as self-hosted sites with Jetpack enabled. Also, he announced who the lead developers for versions 4.5 (Mike Schroder), 4.6 (Dominik Schilling) and 4.7 (Matt Mullenweg) will be as well as seven new core committers.

He made it very clear how important he thinks JavaScript is and will be in the future and that we all should take on that challenge and learn JavaScript, deeply.

Matt Mullenweg: State of the Word 2015

WP REST API – Core Merge Proposal

September 22, 2015

In case you missed it: WP REST API is finally being officially proposed to merge into WordPress Core. The idea is to first integrate the infrastructure of the API in Version 4.4 and then merge the endpoints in Version 4.5 as a second step.

What’s also great is that the Team working on the API used GitHub during Development and the experience they gained could lead to a tighter integration of GitHub for the work on WordPress core too, which would be a great side effect.

Make WordPress Core – WP REST API Merge Proposal

picu is available in Public Beta since yesterday

September 2, 2015

Since yesterday you can download picu from WordPress.org as a Public Beta. We hope to gather as much feedback as we can from an even broader range of photographers.

Download it, test it, rip it apart, review it, send us your inputs. But please don’t forget that picu is in “public beta” and just learned to walk, so please be kind to it :)

picu on WordPress.org – Client Proofing for Photographers

PostStatus on the Thesis / Automattic Case

July 24, 2015

Brian Krogsgard wrote a post on Post Status about the Thesis VS Automattic Case. It sums up pretty much everything from the beginning of their dispute about GPL to the nature of licenses and patents and sheds some light on possible outcomes of this whole debate. It’s the most thoroughly researched article you will find on this topic and Brian managed to let both sides speak without taking sides for on or the other.

Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg have hardly communicated with one another in the last five years, but they are ideological enemies. They have very strong personalities and unshakable beliefs on business and software. This is a story of their dispute, their idealism, and the implications it will have on the WordPress project.

The post is about 10’000 words long, so go grab some coffee or other beverage and take some time to read it. It’s worth it.

Post Status – Thesis, Automattic, and WordPress

Automattic VS DIYThemes

July 16, 2015

Apparently, Automattic just won a legal case against Chris Pearson from DIYThemes regarding thesis.com. I’m not a lawyer and thus wont comment on the legal side of it (if you need a proper legal analysis, here you go), but this whole thing seems a bit strange to mee.

To cut a long story short, here’s what appears to have happened:

1. Some third-party held the domain name thesis.com

2. This third-party approached both Automattic and DIYThemes to sell the domain to them

3. Automattic outbid DIYThemes and bought the domain for $100k

4. Pearson of DIYThemes filed a request with ICANN to get the domain name transferred back to him, as he was/is the owner of the trademark for Thesis

5. Automattic won and in the process of this, the whole Thesis trademark got questioned and Pearson now has to fear loosing it altogether in a case still open

Whether this all is legally correct (which I suppose it is), whether the trademarks from Pearson were valid or not, whether he was or is a jerk and refused to properly comply to the GPL: All of this doesn’t explain why Automattic buys a “cool generic domain name” for $100k which has absolutely nothing to do with any of their own trademarks or brands but is solely and directly attacking the business of someone else.

I struggle to find an explanation other than personal vendetta and from the comments on other posts I’m not alone with this. Looking forward to a statement from Matt on the topic, which presumably won’t happen until the trademark case is closed, though.

If you ask me, there’s only one winner in this whole battle and that’s the “third-party” who sold a domain for 100k. Everyone else involved would have been better of without all this.

WPTavern – Chris Pearson Loses Cybersquatting Case Against Automattic

Improving Code Quality

July 9, 2015

If you’re building things with WordPress, it’s important to deliver quality code. Especially if it’s going to be released to the public or used by a client. There’s a good post on the WPMUDEV Blog covering many aspects from HTML/CSS, JavaScript or PHP to the WordPress Coding Standards or Accessibility.

It’s a great starting point if you are unsure how to improve your code but also a good reminder for experienced developers.

Stop Cowboy Coding: 10 Tips for Improving the Quality of Your WordPress Themes and Plugins