Commercial vs. Community Plugins

Allie Nimmons:
Hey, Nyasha, how are you doing today?

Nyasha Green:
Hey, Allie. I’m doing well. How are you?

Allie Nimmons:
I’m great. Happy Monday to you and happy whatever day it is to anybody listening. Um, . So, yeah, today I wanted to talk about, um, even though we are like a month and a half out from the event itself, I wanted to talk about something that Matt Mullenweg talked about in the state of the word back in December. Um, and that’s the introduction of these different, uh, plug-in categories that he would like to introduce into the plug-in repository. Um, those are solo community, commercial and canonical plug-ins. Um, and I remember when I was in New York listening to him talk about this, I was sort of like, okay, I, I’m always down for more taxonomy. I always down for more ways to organize lots of stuff. I mean, there’s almost 60,000 plug-ins in the repository right now, um mm-hmm. and being able to provide more metadata about those plugins so that people understand what they are, um, at a glance definitely helpful.

Um, but I also had some like confusion and reservations about the exact way in which we’ve decided to do this. Um, and so I wanted to chat with you about pros and cons because I think that while this is kind of like a decision based off of, or, or aimed at business owners, plug-in developers, it’s also very much like a community decision and affects the way that everyone is going to be interacting with plug-ins moving forward. So I’m curious about your initial thoughts, your initial reactions, um, and kind of like what your impressions are of this, this decision.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah. So I was very surprised to hear this news when I was listening to the state of the word. Um, for me, it is a, I don’t know what you would call, uh, I think it would, I thought it would’ve been more of a touchy topic than it was, or that I’ve seen. Maybe it is, um, especially since we’re still kind of fresh off how plug-in developers were feeling about the growth chart situation when it, um, disappeared. Um, so I know it’s been like a little bit of a, what do you call it? Like kind of kind of a hotspot when you talk about the plug-ins and developers and the way, what we’re doing with them. Um, at first I was a little worried about this, um, because my first initial thoughts was categorizing these plug-ins is going to lead, in my opinion, more people away from some of the plug-ins that may cost mm-hmm. .

And the, my reasoning with that is, um, you know, as this is a very American view, so it’s, it’s kind of ethnocentric, I do want to admit that. Um, but here it’s like we kind of, a lot of us kind of get into, like paid is probably better. Mm-hmm. . Um, so that might be what drives people to more paid plug-ins. And honestly, it works with me a little bit. I sometimes I feel a little bit more comfortable like buying, paying for something mm-hmm. , um, a little more. Cause I think the quality is there, right. Um, so I think a lot of plugin developers may use that to their advantage. I think if you’re a good business person, you would, um, like, Hey, you know, this may, this may cost a little more, but look at this quality, uh, support you’re getting with it. Look at, you know, um, the, the money that you’re paying goes into what you’re getting. And I think a lot of people were using that to, you know, kind of control their cells. I think introducing something like this, um, because we’re going to steer people toward community, and I’m doing air quotes, , um, plug based plug-ins, that’s gonna take, in my opinion, away from some of those premium plug-ins. Mm-hmm. Um, so I do see how some people would be concerned about it.

Allie Nimmons:
That’s so interesting to me because I had the exact same assumption of, okay. I find that fascinating. I had the exact same opposite assumption that, um, my fear was that it would push people away from free plug-ins for that exact reason, though, right. Of people look at it and say, oh, well, if there’s a free version, if there’s a free plugin that does X, y, z say, just say, say forum plugins. Right? I need a forum plugin. Mm-hmm. , there’s a free version, there’s a, um, you know, a paid version, a commercial PL version. Oh, I’m gonna assume that the commercial one is better. And so I’m gonna disregard the free one. Um, that to me, and I guess it depends on the person, like you said, it depends on where in the world they are and how they view these kind of things. Um, but it, overall, it makes me concerned that people are gonna jump to a conclusion based off of this, this label without really and truly looking at the plugin itself.

Um, because there’s so many more things that matter about a plugin and whether you decide to use that plugin, that’s has nothing to do with how much it costs, if it has add-ons, if it’s built by one person or if it’s a community project. Like, and I think that a lot of the average WordPress user, you know, word inside baseball, right? You and I, um, the average WordPress user who doesn’t read up and listen about all of this stuff, they look at a plugin and they say, well, does it, does it do what I wanted to do? And can I afford it? Um,

Nyasha Green:
Yes.

Allie Nimmons:
So it’s inter it’s interesting that we have the this the opposite, uh, concern for the same reason.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah. And, um, that, that was, that was my first initial, initial view on it. Um mm-hmm. , I don’t, and it’s funny because like I was never as big as I feel like a, a business minded person to have got into WordPress, which is not why I got into WordPress. So That’s funny. But, um,

Allie Nimmons:
We also work for Rob and I think that rubs off on us.

Nyasha Green:
Yeah. Yeah. Rob, I’m ready to be like wolf of WordPress right now. Rob

Allie Nimmons (06:05):
Wolf, Wolf of WordPress. That’s great.

Nyasha Green:
But, uh, I think on the flip side of that, um, I, I think it could go the opposite direction as well. That’s, this is where I come to agree with you. So, on the flip side of that, I think there are also a good, there’s a good number of us that, especially if we’re using plugins for our business when it comes into, uh, us making money, I think if there are more community back plugins that are not like, uh, commercial, like they have the official WordPress, and this is me looking at it as a, like a customer or consumer. They have the official WordPress seal of approval mm-hmm. , and, you know, it’s backed by the WordPress. Um, why not? Why not go with the free one? You know? Yeah. I, I would, I would jump to the free one if I know it’s being, you know, it has that extra seal of approval because I’ll, it’ll put me in the mindset of why will I spend money on this plug-in when I can, you know, yeah. I can, uh, hop in. And

Allie Nimmons:
That, that gives me a lot of concern as well. Like, it kind of, I feel like it’s gonna make it harder for new plug-in developers to get those sales and get those numbers. Yes. If people are passing over them for something that is, you know, officially recommended, which I think the, out of the, so out of the four options, we didn’t really explain exactly what the four options are, but it’s a free single person project, right? So one person made this plugin, they put it up on the store entirely free community projects. I don’t fully know what that means. I guess that means like a team of people has volunteers or of maybe like the, the pods framework or something like that, where it’s multiple people working on it together, commercial plug-ins. Um, I feel like that’s like Yost give WP like, you know, these, these big plug-ins with big paid teams behind them that have premium versions, add-ons, et cetera.

And then canonical plugins, which are officially recommended, community supported, entirely free. Um, and I feel like in some of these there’s overlap, right? Like I could imagine Yost would be a commercial and canonical plugin, um, because they do have a free version, but they also have a Freeman version. Um, I’ll say that the canonical one gives me the most, uh, like reservation. Mm-hmm. , I think it’s really cool to mark a plugin, a single person one or a community one, because as a user I’m like, oh, that’s really cool. This one plugin was built by one person. Um, mm-hmm. , or this one plugin is a community effort. I think that’s really cool. The canonical one, who is recommending that? Like, who decides that? Is it the plugin review team? Are there gonna be votes? How, how frequently are those VO plugins change all the time? How frequently are those votes gonna be revisited?

Um mm-hmm. , what does community supported me? Who is the community? Is it just people on make teams? Is it your average user? Is it businesses? Is it individuals? Like, that makes me really confused. And I mean, we have a lot of misunderstanding about WordPress in terms of wordpress.org and wordpress.com mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . So if Jet Pack is sitting there as a canonical plugin with a little WordPress stamp, you know, a little WordPress icon on it to, to indicate that it’s a canonically like supported plugin, is that wordpress.com automatic saying, you know, we support our own plugin. Is that the com? Like the average user is not gonna understand the nuance of that. And that’s where I get nervous. Mm-hmm. ,

Nyasha Green:
I’m with you a hundred percent on that. I think it takes some of the fairness out, especially like you said, for newer plugin developers. Like, I’m a person who I’ve expressed interest in the past, uh, actually creating a WordPress plugin. And it’s actually something once I get past, you know, several hundred of my other project, uh, projects on , it’s something that I wanted to jump into doing. Mm-hmm. . But you know, with this just a few things that have happened, it, I’m kind of been thinking like, what’s the point? Like, is it gonna be something I’m just doing for fun just to say I did it because it would be like entirely free single person project now. Or, you know, how can I compete with yo how can I compete with Jet Bag? Mm-hmm. . Um, even if I, you know, even if, if a couple of of us from work did it, we got our own little team together.

Like how would we fit into this? I do think it’s, it’s, I do think it’s unfair for not even just like a single person, but like, cuz there are, we have people in the community who are well known or especially have worked with well known companies or well-known organizations. Maybe they can get up going, doing a single person project. But what about that little known, that little too less known person in the WordPress community? What about that person who’s new to, to the community mm-hmm. , maybe they just got into the community this year. Mm-hmm. , what are they gonna do? How is that fair for them? So that gave me reservations too. Um, it just seems like there’s going to be this cool kids club plug-ins side.

Allie Nimmons:
It’s, it sounds like a breeding ground for, you know, competition, potentially unhealthy competition. It sounds like it’s gonna be a popularity contest and it just sounds like it’s, it’s building barriers for people to be successful with plugin development. And I think that like there’s, there’s, um, you know, we’ve talked about this on the plugin in various episodes before of like WordPress going through this teenage phase right now where we’re like, okay, well we’re open source, but we also wanna be this big tech company and mm-hmm. , you know, sometimes maybe that means prioritizing, um, systems like this that do create like financial competition and business competition over the whole Kumbaya, everyone gets a fair shot. Um mm-hmm. , it just seems like a weird hill to stake your flag on that, you know, plugins are so accessible in terms of like, if you are a developer who wants to get started building products in the WordPress space, plugins is where you’re gonna look to.

And so by doing this, we’re kind of saying, well, maybe not so much anymore. Like, I don’t know if that’s because of the whole, we’re shifting everything to blocks now, and so we’re kind of closing the gate a little bit on plugins. It feels very strange and like, I I, I don’t think it’s an a hundred percent inherently a bad thing. Like I said at the beginning, I’m all down for more organization. I’m all about clearer communication and organizing things and being, you know, providing that data. It just, there’s all these implications and there’s all these, uh, I don’t understand the infrastructure and how it’s going to work for a net positive result.

Nyasha Green:
I’m with you. I agree. Um, I said, and I thought about it, um, before we talked, you know, cause I can see both sides of everything. And I see the pros for developers. I see the cons. I see the pros for WordPress project. I see the cons. I think, um, one thing I love about the WordPress project is that people aren’t really opposing to trying new things. Um, I love how adventurous they are. I know this is like a new thing and it surprised a lot of people. So, you know, I’m one of those people like, Hey, let’s try it. But the more and more I learn about it, I’m like, while we try this and, you know, trial and error and they go and they go in and fix things, who will get lost in that process. Mm-hmm. , will it be again, the single, uh, person plug-in developer that just started, will they be able to survive a trial and error like this? Right. So I’m with you.

Allie Nimmons:
Also, the thing of like, you know, sometimes things happen, sometimes plug-ins experience vulnerabilities. Um, sometimes they lapse in, um, maintenance for a little while. Um, you know, if you have a canonical plugin and something happens to it to where, you know, there have been times in, in my WordPress experience where it’s like, oh, there’s a very well known plugin, but it’s like, Hey, don’t update it right for a little while. Or we’re not using this one anymore because something ha you know, anything could happen. What kind of a team of people is gonna be behind, um, making sure that we are not still quote unquote promoting a potentially vulnerable plug-in to millions of people.

Nyasha Green:
Yes.

Allie Nimmons:
What kind of good

Nyasha Green:
Thought,

Allie Nimmons (14:34):
What kind of responsibility does the project take? So if, if we’re like, okay, what if all of a sudden WooCommerce has this crazy vulnerability and it’s, you know, has the WordPress stamp of approval and a bunch of people are downloading it and all these stores get hacked. Like, does that create some degree of liability? Um, and you know, that’s, that’s such a worst case. That’s such a doomsday scenario. But it just, it all of these things, I’m like, who’s responsible for that? Is there gonna be now an additional team responsible for this? Does all this work fall on the existing plug-in review team? What if we have another pandemic and we don’t have the people to do, like, I’m trying not to be overtly negative about it. Um, I just, I I wanna poke holes and see where, where the cookie crumbles. Um, I know you said you had read a couple of comments, um, of from like peop plugin developers who had expressed some of their thoughts. Can you talk a little bit about what you read from, from those folks?

Nyasha Green:
So I was looking at one of the comments on make WordPress when um, they were talking about the release and one user, he talked about his, uh, point of view on it, and I’m gonna read word from word. Um, he said that this seems like a strange decision. All of the commercial in quotes, um, plugins are open source as required by WordPress licensing. And many of those have open GitHub repositories that encourage contribution. Why not provide a link to that and continue to encourage the open source development of all WordPress plugins? I thought that was a great like statement slash question. Like, aren’t we constantly arguing about how we need more contribution to the project? And I think, um, people hopping on these plugins that might be, that could be a way of them getting some of their first tastes of con contribution to the project. And we’re kind of cutting that off. We’re kind of like, you know what, um, we’re not cutting that off cuz that’s not their intention, but we’re kind of making it easier for them to kind of circumvent that mm-hmm. and go to ones that already have like a, a bunch of support and are we fostering new growth with that or are we fostering, you know, more community development or are we just giving people a easy way in and an easy way out. Mm-hmm. , I think that was a really, really, really great comment.

Allie Nimmons:
Mm-hmm. , what about the response? I’m also, I’m looking at the response of the author as well. Um,

Nyasha Green:
Yeah. So they, uh, the author responded, you know, it’s just, that’s not really important or what they’re talking about. It’s just a matter of char characterization, categorization. Mm-hmm. , oh my gosh. Mm-hmm. , the author said that it’s actually just a matter of categorization and community plugins are, you know, they want ’em to be clear that that’s what it is. If it’s a community plugin, it’s mainly supported by our community. Not that it has a potential to be supported by the community. Um, not that, you know, people can or can’t contribute to it in the future. We’re just here about, you know, pure labeling. But I think that ignores the connotations of what they’re bringing up in a bunch of what we’re talking about. It’s like, yeah, we’re putting labels on stuff, but as with anything in the world, even outside of tech, when we put labels on things that does lead to other stuff. Mm-hmm. and we need to talk about it’s important to foster that discussion.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I think I wonder, um, and you know, this is, I don’t ever wanna come in here and say, well, people didn’t think things through. I know that, that the people who make these decisions think things through. I know that they care about not only, uh, how this works, but it’s effect. Right. I know that they care about that. Mm-hmm. , it feels like from reading this, that it wasn’t thought through, um, in terms of how the average user, what they’re gonna get out of this, what they’re gonna understand by this. And I, I think that, um, you know, one of the other things the author said in that response was, whether the software is open source or not is kind of irrelevant as all software in our directory is open source. I didn’t know that when I started using WordPress, I went for me a whole year building sites with WordPress and not understanding anything about open source. I would just go into the plug-in directory search for something I needed, kind of glance at the review and whatnot and, and download it. And if there was something that told me, oh, this is community and this is commercial that would affect the way that I would consume that product, hands down. Mm-hmm. . Um, I

Nyasha Green:
Agree.

Allie Nimmons:
And so yeah, that’s, I think that’s my main concern is like, I think that, I think that there’s merit to the concept. I don’t know that the execution makes a whole lot of sense and you know, it’s WordPress, well, we might iterate on this and five years from now we’ll look back and be like, oh, we were worried about nothing. Or like, oh, it all, it all turned out. But like the way that it seems structured at the moment doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me for the, you know, 90% of WordPress users who aren’t aware of what open source does or means or how it affects plugins.

Nyasha Green:
I’m with you. I think we uh, we overestimate as people in Tech , we don’t think about how much the average person who’s not in tech knows about tech knows not even just like, you know, our software, the WordPress project, computers, servers. Yeah. The way, the way plugins work, the way the internet works, a lot of people do not know mm-hmm. , and this is what’s supposed to be for users, but if our users aren’t properly educated and not saying that’s a fault to them, that’s just something they’re not exposed to or something they don’t know, we have to deal with that fallout. Mm-hmm. .

Allie Nimmons:
And I mean it would be really cool if there was some kind of um, like separate database that, like a freelancer or you know, an agency could pop in the name of a plugin and see this categorization and, and understand, you know, okay, if I’m gonna recommend a plugin to a client maybe mm-hmm here’s the information. But like front and center in the storefront for everybody to see, I feel like creates some more confusion than it solves. But I agree. We shall see. Thank you so much Nyasha for chatting with me. I really hope that people continue this conversation. I wanna hear a lot about, you know, you and I are not plug-in developers. I really wanna know more about not yet what the plug-in. Not yet. I love that. I love your energy . We are not plug-in developers yet, but experienced plug-in developers. I would really, really wanna know how they feel like this is gonna affect them if they think it’s gonna affect them at all. Some people might just kind of have rolled their eyes and been like, yeah, this isn’t gonna gonna do much. But I’m curious. I’m curious to know. Well, we will catch you in the next, uh, episode and yeah, see you around. Thank you Nyasha.

Nyasha Green:
No problem.