So it is decided I guess, bbPress will finally be a WordPress plugin, most probably a canonical plugin. In the IRC meetup on 30 December ’09, Matt said that bbPress will surely become a WordPress plugin – not so soon, maybe after the release of bbPress 1.2 or so.
Here are the messages by Matt (from the meetup):
[21:26] photomatt: bbPress will definitely be a WP plugin
[21:26] photomatt: but don’t want to change the data structure decision until 1.2-ish
[21:26] photomatt: we owe users improvements before we rewrite data structures
Wait wait.. by the way, what are canonical plugins?
Quoting from the WordPress Blog:
Canonical plugins would be plugins that are community developed (multiple developers, not just one person) and address the most popular functionality requests with superlative execution. These plugins would be GPL and live in the WordPress.org repo, and would be developed in close connection with WordPress core. There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins that ensured that a) the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards, and b) that new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility. There would be a screen within the Plugins section of the WordPress admin to feature these canonical plugins as a kind of Editorโs Choice or Verified guarantee. These plugins would be a true extension of core WordPress in terms of compatibility, security and support.
Well, if you ask me, it doesn’t matter whether it will be a plugin or a standalone. I just want to see the progress of bbPress going on and on. ๐
So what is your opinion on this topic? Let us know by typing in your suggestions in the comments form below!
That’s really great to hear. I’ve been holding off on putting up a forum on my site because I don’t want to have 2 software packages to maintain (WordPress and forum software) so it will be really nice when it is a plugin.
I’m looking forward to Canonical plugins too, and it will be great to see bbpress as a canonical plugin.
So many fun things coming up in 2010 for WordPress!
I don’t really know what to think about this.. I liked the idea of bbPress being a standalone software package, which could be integrated into already existing websites, portals and more, which doesn’t use WordPress. After this change, all these will have to install WordPress, right?
Yup, you’ll have to install WordPress first and then bbPress (which will be a canonical plugin). It wouldn’t matter a lot as now plugin can be installed in a few clicks.
Frankly though, I did not like BB press too much. I would always suggest people to take a look at Vanilla forum also. One example is slicehost forums. They look way neater.