Philosophy

Out of the box

Great software should work with little configuration and setup. WordPress is designed to get you up and running and fully functional in no longer than five minutes. You shouldn’t have to battle to use the standard functionality of WordPress.

Wy wurkje hurd om te soargjen dat elke release yn oerienstimming is mei dizze filosofy. Wy freegje om sa min mooglik technyske details tidens it opsetproses, lykas ek folsleine ferklearrings leverje fan alles wat wy freegje.

Design for the majority

Many end users of WordPress are non-technically minded. They don’t know what AJAX is, nor do they care about which version of PHP they are using. The average WordPress user simply wants to be able to write without problems or interruption. These are the users that we design the software for as they are ultimately the ones who are going to spend the most time using it for what it was built for.

Decisions, not options

When making decisions these are the users we consider first. A great example of this consideration is software options. Every time you give a user an option, you are asking them to make a decision. When a user doesn’t care or understand the option this ultimately leads to frustration. As developers we sometimes feel that providing options for everything is a good thing, you can never have too many choices, right? Ultimately these choices end up being technical ones, choices that the average end user has no interest in. It’s our duty as developers to make smart design decisions and avoid putting the weight of technical choices on our end users.

Clean, lean, and mean

The core of WordPress will always provide a solid array of basic features. It’s designed to be lean and fast and will always stay that way. We are constantly asked “when will X feature be built” or “why isn’t X plugin integrated into the core”. The rule of thumb is that the core should provide features that 80% or more of end users will actually appreciate and use. If the next version of WordPress comes with a feature that the majority of users immediately want to turn off, or think they’ll never use, then we’ve blown it. If we stick to the 80% principle then this should never happen.

Wy kinne dit dwaan om’t wy in heul kapabel tema- en pluginsysteem hawwe en in fantastyske ûntwikkeldersmienskip. Ferskillende minsken hawwe ferskillende behoeften, en mei it grutte oantal kwaliteit WordPress-plugins en tema’s kinne brûkers har ynstallaasjes oanpasse oan har smaak. Dat soe alle brûkers de oerbleaune 20 kinne kinne fine% a en meitsje alle WordPress-funksjes dy’t se wurdearje en brûke.

Striving for simplicity

We’re never done with simplicity. We want to make WordPress easier to use with every single release. We’ve got a good track record of this, if you don’t believe us then just take a look back at some older versions of WordPress!

In past releases we’ve taken major steps to improve ease of use and ultimately make things simpler to understand. One great example of this is core software updates. Updating used to be a painful manual task that was too tricky for a lot of our users. We decided to focus on this and simplified it down to a single click. Now anyone with a WordPress installation can perform one click upgrades on both the core of WordPress and plugins and themes.

Wy hâlde fan ússels út te daagjen en taken te ferienfâldigjen op manieren dy’t posityf binne foar de algemiene WordPress brûkersûnderfining. Elke ferzje fan WordPress moat makliker en nofliker wêze om te brûken as de lêste.

Deadlines are not arbitrary

Deadlines are not arbitrary, they’re a promise we make to ourselves and our users that helps us rein in the endless possibilities of things that could be a part of every release. We aspire to release three major versions a year because through trial and error we’ve found that to be a good balance between getting cool stuff in each release and not so much that we end up breaking more than we add.

Good deadlines almost always make you trim something from a release. This is not a bad thing, it’s what they’re supposed to do.

The route of delaying a release for that one-more-feature is a rabbit hole. We did that for over a year once, and it wasn’t pleasant for anybody.

The more frequent and regular releases are, the less important it is for any particular feature to be in this release. If it doesn’t make it for this one, it’ll just be a few months before the next one. When releases become unpredictable or few and far between, there’s more pressure to try and squeeze in that one more thing because it’s going to be so long before the next one. Delay begets delay.

The vocal minority

There’s a good rule of thumb within internet culture called the 1% rule. It states that “the number of people who create content on the internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content”.

Dat hoewol wy it wirklik wichtich fine om te harkjen en te reagearjen op dyjingen dy’t feedback pleatse en har mieningen op foarums útsprekke, fertsjinwurdigje se mar in lyts fraksje fan ús ein brûkers. By it meitsjen fan besluten oer hoe’t jo foarút kinne mei takomstige ferzjes fan WordPress, sykje wy mear fan dy brûkers te belûken dy’t net sa fokaal online binne. Wy dogge dit troch te moetsjen en te praten mei brûkers by WordCamps oer de heule wrâld, dit jout ús in better lykwicht fan begryp en lit ús úteinlik bettere besluten nimme foar elkenien dy’t foarút giet.

Our bill of rights

WordPress is licensed under the General Public License (GPLv2 or later) which provides four core freedoms, consider this as the WordPress “bill of rights”:

• De frijheid om it programma út te fieren, foar elk doel.
• De frijheid om te studearjen hoe’t it programma wurket, en it te feroarjen om it te meitsjen wat jo wolle.
• De frijheid om te fersprieden.
• De frijheid om kopyen fan jo oanpaste ferzjes te fersprieden oan oaren.

In diel fan dy lisinsjeeasken omfetsje ôfliedende wurken fan fergunningferliening of dingen dy’t kearnfunksjes fan WordPress (lykas tema’s, plugins, ensfh.) ek ûnder de GPL keppelje, en dêrmei de frijheid fan gebrûk foar dizze wurken ek trochjaan.

Fansels binne d’r dejingen dy’t sille besykje om dizze idealen hinne te kommen en de frijheid fan har brûkers te beheinen troch te besykjen slûzen te finen of op ien of oare manier de bedoeling fan ‘e WordPress-lisinsje te omzeilen, dat is om frijheid fan gebrûk te garandearjen. Wy leauwe dat de mienskip as gehiel dejingen sil beleanje dy’t har rjochtsje op it stypjen fan dizze lisinsjefrijheden ynstee fan te besykjen se te foarkommen.

De WordPress-mienskip moat beklamje dat de frijheden yn ‘e GPL helpe by it leverjen fan software fan hege kwaliteit.