WordPress 2.5 Would Be A Commercial Failure
Comments (11) If WordPress charged for their blogging software they would most likely be seeking bankruptcy right now, or be ripe for a Microsoft or Google takeover. The latest version of WordPress 2.5, to put it mildly, sucks!
I would like to put on record right from the start that I am a WordPress fan – I like the software and the relative ease of use. Although I have only been in the blogging world for 6 months, I have used several different platforms including Drupal. Hopefully I can continue my happy association with WordPress, just not with release 2.5. Fortunately I didn’t upgrade this blog so I can continue to operate in a happy blog environment. I did upgrade three of my other sites and so far the experience has not been great.
There has been a lot of discussion about the WordPress 2.5 release and the lack of support on Andrew Boyd’s On Blogging Australia site – the discussion makes for interesting reading so I wont go back over those issues. If your interested I suggest you click on over and have a read.
My title says it all really. WordPress 2.5 would be a commercial failure. Proof of this can be seen by the relatively quick patch release that fixed around 70 – yes seventy issues. Talk about product recall big time.
I think WordPress as an organization has become stuck in a mindset that says ‘this is free software’. The reality is, free or not, they should be taking a commercial approach. At present, part of their ‘mindset’ seems to revolve around having specific release periods which seem to be scheduled for 3 or 4 times per year. Commercial software goes through an annual release and thats it.
Having regular scheduled upgrades is a great motivational tool, particularly when you are relying on unpaid programming support. You can still achieve this motivation whilst have longer release time frames.
The beta testing phase was far too short and did not leave any time for ‘fixing’ issues prior to its release. The more workable timetable could see annual releases, say in January each year with beta versions released for testing in July. This would enable three months of testing and feedback followed by three months of fine tuning prior to the following release. To have 70 issues that needed ‘fixing’ is testament to the lack of beta testing.
WordPress needs to undergo a cultural change within the organization that can relate to users on “commercial” rather than a “free” basis. WordPress has been, arguably, the best platform available for self hosted blogs for a long time with millions of blogs using the software. The problems that users are now facing is providing real motivation for alternatives to update and promote their software.
Once users find viable alternatives, they will slowly move away from WordPress – and as has been shown in the past with other software, a dribble soon becomes a flood and WordPress will be left with a small dedicated group of users and developers and a poor reputation.
I hope WordPress can open its ears a little more, listen to what the users are saying, and return to a more user friendly blogging environment. I would like to think I could continue using this software for as long as I need it. Sometimes, we can be too smart for our own good and this time around, WordPress got it wrong. Fair enough – let’s get it right and move on.
happy blogging – les
