Sometimes the topics are a bit random and getting them to tie together can be tricky, so today where going with TLWs (three letter words). Ok, not actually words but abbreviations, heckle elsewhere. We have business, technology, and community represented.
CEO
Long time CEO of Envato, Collis Ta’eed: “After 14 years in my CEO gig, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to step down from my role and empower a new CEO to take the business into the future. I’ll still be around though! I’ll be staying on as Chairperson of the Board. I still, and will always, care deeply about this community and business, and there’s plenty for me to do on the Board to level up our game, especially now that we are a registered B Corporation.”
PHP
Without this million year old programming language, WordPress would most likely be a very different beast. It’s good fortune that both offer levels of backwards compatibility that are not often encountered in open source. From the WordPress mothership, Juliette Reinders Folmer: “In short, I’m proposing a fixed schedule in which every PHP version is supported for five years. Additionally each WordPress release will receive security updates for four years. In effect, this means that users, at a stretch, would be able to run on one specific PHP version for nine years.” I love having a transparent view into the versioning. I think nine years it crazy. It ultimately places an undue burden on hosting companies to police very old sites. Yes that’s part of the joy of running a host but ultimately gives WordPress a black-eye when you get reports of 100,000+ sites hacked. I hope this timeline gets much smaller.
MSP
The number of WordCamps left for 2020 is minuscule so it was with great pleasure that I attended the virtual WordCamp Minneapolis. I didn’t see a single technical issue (MSP outsourced the entire infrastructure which as a really smart idea), the presentations were spot on, and I think the sponsors got a little more value by being on the video reel between sessions as well as sending out a flat pack of stickers. The networking compared to actual WordCamps still suffers. I’m actually surprised by attendees not taking advantage of meeting face-to-face with so contributors and companies in the ecosystem. I know Zoom fatigue is a legitimate issue but there are amazing, live, one on one resources just a click away. I hope people get more comfortable with this since the next in-person WordCamp isn’t going to happen for a while