[wp-hackers] Less than Core, More than Plugins/Themes: Proposing Optional Modules.

[Jeremy Clarke]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Ozh <ozh at planetozh.com> wrote:
> I have probably misunderstood or overlooked something, but I don't get
> how this is different from plugins...

[ mike already replied but here's some more to chew on]


I'm agnostic on the issue, but they would be different from plugins in
that they would be a kind of official plugin tended by the core
committers but excluded from the default install. The best argument is
the situation where core says "this should be a plugin" but the people
say "This is too important to leave up to dislocated volunteers, this
functionality is so important that we all need insurance that it will
continue working like any part of core, even if it would cause bloat
if done in a way that makes it always active". Some non-standard
functionality may be important enough to - for example - stop a new
release from coming out until it is ready. Examples that might be
candidates for this module system:

 * Role/Capability micro-management
 * Podcasting abilities
 * CMS Theme framework
 * caching (supercache could just be promoted in status, Donncha is
already a committer for wpmu).

IMHO this could also be achieved by Automattic/WP.org just choosing
its preferred plugins and taking good care of them, but some UI and
API changes to make it easier to communicate missing dependencies to
users could also be cool.

-- 
Jeremy Clarke
Code and Design | globalvoicesonline.org