Tag Archives: Open

Open Meeting and Call for Feedback – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The WordPress.org Themes Team announced an open discussion and date for a Zoom meeting with theme authors. The team is proposing a new set of guidelines that reduces and simplifies what is currently in place. Comments on the proposal are open through July 26, and the meeting is set for July 28, 2 pm CET. This is the next step in an ongoing plan to revamp the review system and make it easier for the WordPress community to submit themes. It comes after months of waiting to see the results of earlier discussions unfold. In January, the state of the theme review system seemed to have reached a crossroads. The Themes Team, a group of gatekeepers that oversees submissions to the official WordPress.org theme directory, had been making strides in the previous couple of years. Its members had cleaned up most of the submissions backlog, but they still had a lot of work ahead to smooth out the review process. On the whole, a series of incremental improvements seemed to be working at the time, albeit slowly. Then, WordPress project lead Matt Mullenweg dropped a bombshell via the Post Status Slack: The .org theme directory is particularly bad when you compare it to any half-decent commercial theme marketing page, or the designs available on other site building services or Themeforest directories. The .org theme directory rules and update mechanism have driven out creative contributions, it’s largely crowded out by upsell motived contributions. It was an age-old discussion of whether the theme review guidelines were too high of a barrier for entry into the directory. Were WordPress users missing out on the best themes because the most innovative theme authors were not playing in the .ORG sandbox? If so, were the rules driving them away? No one can know if a more lenient, free-for-all atmosphere would have unleashed a mountain of creativity paralleling or besting commercial theme producers. But, perhaps if the team opened things up, it would test the theory. That initial post led to a series of discussions and a decision to overhaul the system. However, the Themes Team would need some help from the Meta Team to implement more automation of its grunt work, such as security and other code checks. Behind the scenes, pieces of that system have been put into place in the months since. Guidelines Proposal and Questions Themes Team representative Carolina Nymark listed a set of 13 overarching guidelines, each with sub-guidelines of their own. The proposal significantly simplifies the current rules for submission into the directory. She asks that theme authors review the proposal and answer the following questions in the comments ahead of the meeting: Will the updated requirements make it easier for you to submit themes?– If no, what is making it difficult for you to submit themes? Will the updated requirements make it easier for you to review submitted themes?– If no, what is making it difficult for you to review themes? Are there requirements that need to be removed, and why? Is there anything in the list of requirements that is unclear? Describe the issue. Can the formatting of the page be improved to make it easier to read? The current proposal is more expansive than the shortlist of guardrails WordPress executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy mentioned in a post that laid out the next steps. Most of these were not meant as blockers for submission. “Rather we should use the list to flag themes that have/don’t have each thing and show them in results accordingly,” she wrote. “Likely exceptions to this would be proper licensing, adherence to fair use of the trademark, and a ban on child pornography or other images of anyone unable to provide consent.” The goal was to put more responsibility into the hands of users, granting them privileges to say whether a theme was working or not. This would take a lot of the work off the shoulders of the review team. Another part of the original proposal was to mark themes with “quality tags” that went above and beyond the baseline for approval. For example, internationalization (i18n) and accessibility (A11Y) are items that do not stop a theme from technically working. Instead of making these requirements, themes would merely be tagged if they met those standards. Presumably, there would be incentives for taking those extra steps for theme authors, such as higher search rankings, the ability to be featured, and more. It is not that i18n and A11Y standards are unimportant, but they are sometimes hindrances to first-time authors. And, they definitely fall within the range of things that end-users can dock themes for in the ratings. Many will take a hard stance on i18n and A11Y, but they are merely examples. A less controversial guideline might be the one that proposes that themes can only recommend plugins directly hosted on WordPress.org. Why should that be a blocker for inclusion in the directory? Some will say there is no good reason for it since themes are disallowed from installing plugins anyway. There are no technical issues with allowing such recommendations. It is these sorts of rules that have plagued the theme review process over the years. Often, it moves discussions into ideological territory that most users do not care about. They just want themes that work. Under the new proposal, moving to 100% blocks would further reduce requirements for developers. Currently, classic themes have a more extensive list of rules they must adhere to. Many of these are unnecessary for block themes, essentially cutting everything back to including a few required files. Most of this can and should be automated in the long term since they are necessary for a functioning theme. Right now, the 13 guidelines (and their sub-guidelines) are only a proposal. Theme authors have a voice, but they must use it. As is so often the case, decisions are made by those who show up. Far too often, the team is shouting into the void, awaiting a response

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UK State of Open Report Finds 97% of UK Businesses Surveyed Use Open Source Software – WP Tavern

[ad_1] OpenUK, a WordPress-powered not-for-profit company, has released its State of the Open report with data from the UK in 2021. The company advocates for open source software, open source hardware, and open data, while providing a central point of collaboration for people working in the open sectors. The State of the Open report offers a broad overview of the UK’s open source ecosystem. This collection of research includes surveys of UK companies, interviews, industry reports, and analysis from different publications. It was sponsored by GitHub, SUSE, and the Open Invention Network, and conducted by Smoothmedia consulting firm under the direction of ethnographer and social researcher Dr. Jennifer Barth. Key findings in Phase 1 of the report include research demonstrating that open source software contributes an estimated £43.1 billion to the UK economy, with the UK ringing in as Europe’s largest contributor. Phase 2 covers open source adoption in the UK. Researchers found a staggering 97% of the 273 UK businesses surveyed use some form of open source software: We found that 97% of businesses of different sizes in all sectors of the UK economy use open source software technology. Although resources became a more pressing concern during the pandemic, 64% of businesses in our sample experienced business growth which translated into a high recruitment drive for roles relating to open source software in the past 12 months (see recruitment findings). Further, we find that almost half of businesses surveyed (48%) are using open source software more as digital adoption becomes embedded in organisational culture and business. Other key findings from Phase 2 include the following: 53% of non-tech organizations contribute to open source software projects 77% of UK public sector looks to open source for skills developmen Over half (54%) have written policies and processes for open source contributions 89% run open source software internally in their business Approximately two thirds (65%) contribute to open source software projects One interesting observation from the contribution data is that smaller companies are more likely to contribute back to open source than larger companies. Smaller companies are also more likely to use open source software in their businesses. From the #StateOfOpen report from @openuk_uk, it’s clear that businesses of all sizes make key use of open source. The report correlates company size and open source involvement, showing smaller companies more active in contributing to open source. https://t.co/A7dz3pjqFm pic.twitter.com/L5qeRrs9Xc — Aiven (@aiven_io) July 12, 2021 Survey respondents cited “saving on costs” as the main reason for adopting open source (75%), followed by more collaboration (72%), skill development (64%), the quality of code (61%), and security (52%). Phase 3 is planned to be published in September 2021. This report will focus on UK data with a methodology tailored to reveal the value of open source software to the digital economy. It will also include case studies that demonstrate the non-economic, intangible benefits of open source software, such as skills development and collaboration. The published reports are lengthy but will be of particular interest to companies working in the UK and Europe, especially consultancies that may need to justify using open source technologies in engineering decisions. OpenUK plans to conduct a further survey in 2022 as part of this effort to estimate the impact of open source on the UK economy. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Contributing to Open Source Is Better Than Any College Degree – WP Tavern

[ad_1] A week ago, I published my thoughts on the block system from a developer’s perspective. Taking a weekend-afternoon deep dive into creating custom block types meant learning some tough lessons and familiarizing myself with a programming language I had little experience using. Programming has always been a trial-and-error affair for me: write code, refresh the browser, read the error message, and attempt to fix the problem. Then, simply rinse and repeat the process until the program is not broken. Those mistakes are woven into the art of coding, the layers underneath that poetry on the visible canvas. I have absolutely made the same mistake twice. And, thrice. Probably a lot more than that if I am being honest with myself and you. Eventually, I stop making those same mistakes, and some method or procedure is permanently seared into my brain. I have written a few hundred WordPress tutorials in the past decade and a half. I am a twice-published author of development books and served as a tech editor on another. However, I am not much of a reader of tech books and documentation. For one, programmers are not necessarily the most engaging writers. Plus, book smarts can only get you so far. You need the street smarts of programming to become good at it, which means learning from experience. While I firmly believe that reading is a central part of that, there is no replacement for getting your hands dirty. Building things, making mistakes, and learning to fix them is what makes programming fun. Working on open-source software like WordPress is one of the best ways to do that. There is no upfront cost, assuming you have access to a computer, a prerequisite to programming of any kind. There are usually people willing to lend a hand or answer questions, and there are always problems to solve for those ready to dive into them. As WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy chatted with Matt Mullenweg on the Openverse project a couple of months ago, there was a moment that I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Because, of course, you know, contributing and being involved with open source is probably the best way to learn a technology, better than any college degree. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Project Lead I have learned more about WordPress, PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript by contributing to open-source software than I ever learned in a college course. I grew up in a generation that was told that we must get a college degree. It was an integral part of the American dream that would result in suburban life in a neighborhood with perfectly aligned rows of houses, ending in a cul-de-sac. It was the first step toward a two-car garage, white-picket-fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog. College was the promise that my peers and I hinged everything on. It was expected of us, and so many of us did our duty. Here is the thing that our parents did not know. The internet would change everything. I graduated high school in 2002. This was during that stretch where the online world was exploding. All of the world’s knowledge would soon be at our fingertips. Today that is truer than ever. Anything you will ever need to learn about writing code is available through an internet connection. My experience with college-level courses in programming was mixed, but I learned a necessary life lesson from them: I was not cut out for a degree in software engineering. I am glad I wised up early on and pursued a different degree, saving myself some time and money. I rocked my half-summer C programming class, my introduction to writing code. I also had a passionate professor who once worked on U.S. missile projects as a bug-tester. It was probably not the most glamorous job, but he always made it sound exciting because he loved what he was doing. Our class was tasked with building various programs throughout the course, but we usually had a choice in what we were building. For my group’s final project, we created vending machine software. I was on the fast track to becoming a software engineer after that first class. I had built a way for merchants to get paid for delivering sugary treats and soft drinks to customers. It was capitalism meeting programming, and I had a taste for it. The fall semester rolled around, and I was motivated to move beyond the realm of procedural programming in C. Java, an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, would be my next challenge. The most advanced thing our class built for an entire semester was a basic calculator. I skipped nearly every lecture because I could not stay awake watching the professor chicken-peck his way through programs for three hours every week. I attended the mandatory “labs” — basically a fancy way of saying an extra class where the professor’s assistants would teach the actual coursework. Needless to say, my fire died down. While calculator programs are handy tools, I wanted to branch out and build things that mattered. You know what reignited my flame for programming? At first, it was general web development. But, WordPress was what I really became passionate about. And, I have not looked back since I started using it in 2005. WordPress was my gateway into a world where I could create things that interested me. I could jump ahead into a project far more advanced than my skill level, trial-and-error my way ahead, and eventually build something that others found value in. Unless universities have changed, most teach step-by-step foundational lessons to their pupils. Some students may luck out and land in that unique professor’s class who gives them leeway to explore various ideas. However, there is no substitute for creating something of your own, solving a problem that you see. And, that is what programming is all about — solving problems. In 2007, I released my first WordPress plugin into the wild. It automatically listed all

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Open Invitation To Contribute to the WordPress Block Pattern Directory – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] The upcoming block pattern directory is launching alongside WordPress 5.8 in July. The goal is to make several high-quality designs available for users right off the bat. However, the official submission process will not open until the directory launches. In this chicken-and-egg scenario, the Design team is asking for early contributors to submit their pattern candidates via GitHub. “The project needs a collection of high-quality, diverse, community-designed patterns to populate it with during development,” wrote Kjell Reigstad in the announcement post. “These patterns will set the tone for quality in the repository and will make the directory useful for folks upon its launch.” Alongside Reigstad, Beatriz Fialho and Mel Choyce-Dwan have already added several block patterns. They are available through the Gutenberg plugin now. Several of the current block patterns. The trio has also submitted the majority of the 18 current potential patterns. While they have produced solid work thus far, the directory needs a more diverse set of designs from the community to launch with a bang. Creating a pattern requires no coding skills. It is possible directly via the block editor. Just design, copy, and submit. The team already has a GitHub template in place for submitting patterns. Be sure to use CC0 (public domain) images if they are a part of your creation. Copying a pattern from the WordPress editor. I have somewhere between 40 and 50 patterns lying around. You could say that I have been doing a bit of dabbling in the art of block-pattern design in my free time. Many of these patterns rely on custom block styles, so they are not suitable for the directory. However, I have several that are general enough for submission. As always, I try to pay it forward when possible. Therefore, I cleaned a couple of patterns today using the Twenty Twenty-One theme and submitted them for inclusion. The first was a three-column section of “about me” or “connect with me” boxes. This has been one of my favorites to play around with. About me boxes. It is not on par with my original design, but I like how it turned out. If you have read any of my past posts on blocks and patterns, I will sound like a broken record. However, I must say it for those who did not hear the message the first 100 times. The main limiting factor for block patterns is the lack of spacing options on almost all blocks. Blocks like Group and Column have padding controls, which are a nice feature. However, vertical margin options are must-haves for the directory to be as successful with its goals as it intends to be. A prime example is in my first pattern. My original mockup closes the gap between the heading and subheading. In my submission, I tightened the space by setting the line height, but I needed an option for zeroing out the vertical margin. If you compare it to the original idea built with some features not yet available, you can see how much improved the overall layout’s spacing is. Original about me boxes with tighter margin control. I ran into the same issue with my second pattern, Team Social Cards, between the Image and Separator blocks. The gap there has more to do with Twenty Twenty-One’s inconsistent spacing. I may revisit the giraffe photo, but it is growing on me. It is fun. Plus, end-users are meant to actually replace it. I will probably submit one or two more during this early phase, and I will definitely contribute more once the pattern directory is officially open. For now, I want to see our talented design community giving a little something back to the WordPress project. This is such an easy way to contribute that has no coding requirement — just a little time. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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