Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
Is the idea of freezing so that plugins can have time to catch up and get compatible?
I´m sure some authors would optimize their plugins to the stable releases, yes but mainly the idea is not having to “fear” severe changes and improvements that may not even be considered improvements for everyone.
Also, this would be great for client sides as they could just install the latest security patch themselves, without having to worry about destroying anything.
I could put my thinking cap on and make up more scenarios that would benefit from this if you need them 😉
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
What about if the freeze never occurred and there were instead 2 versions of 3.6 (e.g), one with just security fixes and the other version with everything else (inc. security fixes)?
Well the one would be a frozen one from the moment it´s only getting security updates, right? 3.6 Stable would mean it would be a long term “milestone” and all those geeks could develop further up until WP4 or whatever which could then be the next milestone being supported with only security updates until 4.5 or so. It could just be an option in the settings that people CAN select if they want to:
Use stabilized Version?
[ ] Yes [ ] No
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
I don’t know much about the security updates, are the updates that cause plugins to break (sorry, that’s really vague) not related to the security updates?
Updates are for security and upgrades either add-to, alter or improve what the system can actually do.
That´s the point, they go hand in hand with further development and that doesn´t always work on a live site plus, maybe I dont need or want my system to do all that new stuff (yet).
Every Linux system works like this for a good reason: A lot of people love it.
Sure, but an OS is not a CMS, and there are different methodologies for improvements for reasons.
WordPress is an App, not an OS, so the ideology is that updates are updates, and new versions are what we support. Keep in mind, on the rare occasion that a major release has a security patch right away (it happened once in my memory), WP patches both the previous revision and the current one.
But a lot of patches don’t apply to older versions, or aren’t compatible because of other upgrades, and WP made the choice to go ever forward.
However, in the time since 3.4.3 or so I am struggling to keep my site functional in terms of changes you do to the code causing plugins to go tits up and all that. I know plugin authors must update but the majority of them do take a lot of time to do that which is fine, they do it as a hobby.
I’m going to say something that may be considered mean… Stop using plugins that break every update.
There are multiple ways to address every situation you want to ‘resolve’ with a plugin, so find one that doesn’t break. Or reconsider WHY you’re using that plugin. But the number of plugins that break outright on a new release (and I’m a member of the plugin review team, so I’m pretty aware of this one), is surprisingly SMALL when you realize we have 27k plugins.
Well put it that way, without my front end registration and profile editing plugin WordPress would be no option to use because on its own it doesn’t have that functionality. The same applies for my Newsletter and the plugin that tells someone when they´ve received a reply to their comment. So yes, WordPress is really nice but also far away from being an all in one solution. The fact that it takes 27K plugins to make it work for everyone clearly shows that.
Sadly only very few people will actually see this thread because I am very certain if people would have given the choice to use a stable or frozen WP with only security updates, they would actually choose it.
Like I said, I don’t need convincing that I am wrong just because you have a different opinion.
