WordPress plugins are also Open Source indeed. GPLv2 to be exact.

Sorry that i am not able to directly reply to your comment since i wasnt able to find the reply link in comments listing and Im not able to manually override it. Same happened with my reply to Simon.

The tone of the article is intentional. It is intended to take on the hardest criticisms and stigmas about Open Source software and clear doubts in the minds of developers/programmers about making a living/self-financing.

When a software developer addresses his/her concerns about going open source in his or her mind, the tone of the internal discussion that takes place is not one of a scholarly discourse. Its down to earth, ‘real’ talk which involves serious survival concerns and tough criticism. Actually, when a software developer discusses such things with his or her colleagues, the discussion eventually takes the same tonality if it gets serious enough. God forbid in a small software company which may be thinking of going open source.

The article is intended as a participant for such discussions, with the same tone, to address real world, down to earth concerns.

This is the reason it is not offstandish, formal or scholarly. Its intended to be from heart to heart, from mind to mind.

“Sadly, I’m quite uncomfortable with these ideas. WordPress is, yes, technically Free / Open Source. But people make their money partly because it is so complex and therefore exclusively the domain of experts”

Talking as a developer, Simon, i can easily say that WordPress is a platform which makes everything much more easy for users. This is one of the reason why it is so wily popular. You will be hard pressed to find a piece of web software (leave aside platform) which enables non-technical users with more of what used to be the domain of technical professionals than WordPress does.

But, as you observe, indeed, a lot of aspects are still the domain of experts.

However, this is not by design, or out of intent. Its due to the nature of the software:

It is easy to automate and standardize common procedures/activities. Like, creating a post in a blog. Or, putting comments under a blog. When an action is pretty common and standard, you can create a routine on a framework to support that well-defined action, and it suddenly becomes accessible to many.

But when someone comes up and says “Blog posts are all great, but I want my posts to take the form of a dialogue” then everything becomes instantly complicated.

What kind of dialogue. What is the nature of the dialogue-action. Who will be allowed to participate in this ‘dialogue’. To what extent. What is the form in which this dialogue will be presented…

Suddenly the simple action went out of being a simple, well defined action like a “blog post” and became a software design question.

There are plugins which allow users to create/modify entries/posts (ie data types in WordPress logic), like Ninja Forms, but the complexity remains despite you empower the user to create his/her own vision: s/he must define the data type ‘dialogue’, implement its details, and tell the plugin how will this data type be treated.

You see, things get more complicated as you introduce customizability. That’s the gist of it.

So, a user can spend hours in front of a plugin which enables him/her to create such different data types to implement the vision, or, s/he can use another plugin which already does what is wanted.

This is how professional developers make money in WordPress ecosystem, which benefits users and developers alike. In fact, most Developers are users themselves – people use each others’ plugins.

There isnt such a hardly-defined ‘users and experts’ differentiation in WordPress ecosystem. WordPress ecosystem participants range from anywhere in between users totally new even to the concept of of a ‘posting a blog post’ to people who create massive plugins. Its not so unlike hobby electronics scene in 1970s…

“I don’t see WordPress as a commons at all, because there are no direct governance mechanisms linking plain users with experts.”

That would be fundamentally incorrect – from WordPress repository which directly puts the developer face to face with his/her users in the support forum of plugin entries to small software houses which produce plugins/themes having their own forums in which users not only receive technical support and fraternize.

As for governance – entire ecosystem is an Open Source project. Plugin/Theme developers receive input from users (and each other) and they implement changes. Users can modify the plugins themselves by using hooks/filters in well developed plugins. And as any open source project, anyone can fork anything if they are dissatisfied with the rate things are going in a project.

Actually, I would be more cautious about centralized or controllable governance mechanisms.

“Take Linux. There is a great deal to learn, for sure. But it is my experience that it can be learned gradually, step by step.”

To be honest, Simon, even after having to use Linux around ~15 years due to my profession, i don’t see Linux anywhere user friendly as WordPress ecosystem. It improved greatly in the past decade, and installing and setting up various distributions for certain purposes became much easier, but it still remains a mystical, mythical and distant land to the ordinary user. There is much improvement which can be made in the user-friendliness area for Linux.

There is a reason why linux screens are being shown in Hollywood movies to demonstrate ‘complex, hard computer stuff which is done by a super expert’…

I’m not to happy about the tonality of the article either and would not have selected myself

What you really can’t do on your own, without a great deal of time and effort is anything really different or creative. Because it is hard, you have to pay those who have put in the time and effort — either for plugins, or for whole themes.

For me, a really good web site system would be open-ended, with a smooth learning curve, so that ability can grow stage by stage, with no very large jumps. Most people will know someone at the next level up. That way we can start to think about it as a commons. I don’t see WordPress as a commons at all, because there are no direct governance mechanisms linking plain users with experts.

Take Linux. There is a great deal to learn, for sure. But it is my experience that it can be learned gradually, step by step. The more people use Linux seriously, the more comprehensive the learning community becomes. Contrast that with Windows, where the MS Certified people are a priesthood, simply because the path there is that much harder. I think GNU/Linux has all the necessary qualities to support a commons. Windows doesn’t. In that way, I’m afraid to say I believe that WordPress is more on the side of Windows than Linux, belying its legal status as Open Source. And that’s why, it seems to me, there is so much money to be made on it.