WordPress.org

1. davesmiths
   Member
   Posted 7 months ago #

   Hi there

   Let's imagine a completely unlikely nightmare scenario... WordPress disappears. Is there a guarantee that support relating to security patches being available for x number of years after its disappearance? Are there any businesses that offer that kind of support (paid or not)?

   Reason I ask is that at work there is evaluation of CMS applications going on and a question of lifecycle support came up.

   Lifecycle support meaning (hopefully I've understood this malarky) that if a product is acquired, it is guaranteed that for x years the product will be supported by the provider (support most likely meaning security updates mainly I suppose). For example with Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#tab2

   The argument was directed against open source projects. In that (because they are often free to purchase) they do not come with a guarantee that the product will be supported for x number of years. As opposed to paid for products that do.

   I searched the WordPress website to see if there was anything to help me here but couldn't find anything so have posted here.

   all the best
   Dave

2. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 7 months ago #

   Is there a guarantee that support relating to security patches being available for x number of years after its disappearance?

   Nope.

   However, as your 'argument against' rightly points out, there is no guarantee with many (some?) open source products for any lifecycle support, and in the eyes of corporations, this means that should the vendor vanish, they're SOL.

   I would counter with "Yes, but if they do eff off like monkeys, we have LEGAL RIGHTS to do whatever we want to the code. Including fix it. It's open source, so we can edit it all we want, whenever we want, and we're not beholden to the vendor to apply fixes, patches or changes."

   Basically you trade the built in "We will always support you!" for "You don't need us."

   (Also, not every vendor that promises support comes through on that. We had a vendor who one day vanished. Our licenses suddenly failed, because they all phoned home, and home was gone. Called the number, no answer. Sure, we were legally protected and could sue, but that didn't help the fact that we were dead in the water until we reverse engineering their code, hacked into their source, and made the changes to keep us running. So ... y'know, a promise is only as good as the amount of trust you can give a company anyway.)

   ETA: Also keep in mind, WordPress doesn't offer 'official' support for .org users. These forums are it. If you hire people, it's outside of WordPress (until they open up WordPress Consulting). It's different for http://vip.wordpress.com/

3. davesmiths
   Member
   Posted 7 months ago #

   Thanks Ipstenu

   I couldn't have wanted a more open and to-the-point answer. And the link to VIP WordPress looks interesting as well from a coorporate point of view.

   So thank you again! (you are indeed a Half-Elf Support Rogue!)

   all the best
   Dave

4. Tim S
   Member
   Posted 7 months ago #

   Hi Dave,

   I've found that open source products such as WordPress are far superior than proprietary products available. The reasoning behind this is simple. Open source has a collective community of devoted developers all working on it. I've found that problems with the software get solved far quicker in this model over those that are paid for.

   As with any software, it's extremely important to keep it up to date. Patches are released in these updates for a few reasons, to fix functionality and patch security holes.

   I've found few pieces of software come with the true guarantee since there's always zero day attacks happening.

   I hope this helps!

   Tim S.

5. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 7 months ago #

   I work for a Major Company. The paradigm shift between how we implement, test and upgrade 'traditional' software from 'traditional' companies to how we handle the open source ones is ... weird. Part of the problem is just getting people to accept that there's more than one true way to implement software.

   WordPress updates more frequently than, say, Microsoft Sharepoint, but generally the updates are smaller and easier to test, provided you have a good testing rig. Many of the problems faced by corporations aren't 'It's opensource! OMG! Unsupported!' but in the realm of 'I have to test because I cannot be down.'

   I will say that WordPress doesn't make it easy for the novice to understand how they should set up a robust test environment, but personally we run a lot of different applications (many web based) that all require different testing and deployment methods. Even when the content isn't 100% the same across the board, a WordPress install on a separate server that is built the same as your prod server, with the same themes and plugins, is much easier to test on and copy up to 'production'. Heck, it's easy to automate, since most of the time you just copy files up (and yes, sometimes you have DB changes, but WP tries to avoid them, as do most plugins).

   Upgrades and robust testing are always our bugaboo.

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