Extending the WordPress Plugin Directory (Was: Re: [wp-hackers] Google Summer of Code 2007)

[Peter Westwood]

On Wed, March 14, 2007 11:31 pm, Mark Jaquith wrote:
> On Mar 14, 2007, at 5:47 PM, Peter Westwood wrote:
>
>> Is this plugin browser _only_ going to support plugins hosted on wp-
>> plugins.org or will there be future functionality/apis to allow
>> external hosted plugins to be easily listed?
>>
>> If so determining an API and support for these maybe another good
>> SOC project.
>
> The idea is that SVN *is* the API.  You could probably just use
> svn:externals to have it hosted elsewhere and synced to wp-
> plugins.org  Slightly less easy is setting up a script to commit your
> external changes to wp-plugins.org
>
> Note that your plugin would have to be licensed under the GPL, as
> that is a requirement of having your code live (even as a copy) at wp-
> plugins.org
>

My situation is thus:

1. My plugins are GPL.
2. I run my own svn hosting partly because it keeps people away from
trying to use in development code - I don't have that my spare time
available and sometimes code sits for weeks just waiting for me to find
the time to test and tag a release.
3. I am quite happy to host my own downloads - In fact I prefer to host my
own downloads.
4. I want people to visit the page for my plugin and read the introduction
information about it - which is always going to be much more verbose and
up-to-date than the readme.
5. I generate some, if be it a small amount, of revenue to cover the time
I spend on plugin development from paypal and adsense.

At the moment I am penalised and kept out of the "offical" plugin
directory on WordPress.org because I choose not to use dev.wp-plugins.org
to host my code.

Can we not have an API that supports people like me?

Just a simple way of registering a plugin with the "official" plugin
directory and allowing updates to be pushed to WordPress.org?

cheers

westi
-- 
Peter Westwood <peter.westwood at ftwr.co.uk>
http://blog.ftwr.co.uk