WordPress is moving in a very interesting direction that isn’t based on features but services. This added value brings so much to WordPress which means that, similar to search engines, the barrier for competition is being raised progressively higher.
This direction started with the plugins repository. One controlled place where you could download plugins. This soon extended so that WordPress installations could notify their owners that a plugin had been updated; then it allowed automatic updating, and in WordPress 2.7 you can search for and install plugins directly from the WordPress admin area. No more downloading, unzipping, and uploading.
With the resurection of the Themes repository you have to suspect that similar functionality will be also available so that users can download and test themes.
Another upcoming feature is the automatic upgrade of the whole WordPress installation. This not only means that WordPress can be kept up to date but that this can feedback information about incompatible plugins to the repository. Updating will come with a warning to explain which plugins are likely to break, presuming you are not the first person to upgrade.
I have recently begun to look at Habari which I like a lot. In some ways I think Habari is much better than WordPress but the new service based connections between WordPress and the controlled community of add-ons means Habari might find it very hard to compete.
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Andrew Rickmann
I think you might well be right Michael, having read Morydd’s comment.
Competition is good for everyone as long as the competition provides fundamental choice instead of two similar alternatives so I will drink to it.
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Michael C. Harris
I haven’t seen what WordPress is doing since 2.3, I think, but I think Habari will compete in this area pretty well, actually. We’ll see over the next couple of releases.
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Morydd
Habari, being a new project, hasn’t implemented everything that we would like to eventually have working, including integrated plugin and theme repositories. However, one of the goals of the Habari Community is to maintain security and privacy while keeping things simple to use. We have an update beacon system, which will not require a theme or plugin to be hosted on Habari’s servers to function. It is still under development at this stage, but it’s been part of our plan from very early stages. Another of our goals is a stable enough API that plugins will not have to be replaced with every upgrade. While the API should continue to grow, we feel that its stability is also important to the project.
We appreciate the time you’ve taken to check out Habari, and would love any feedback on how we can implement a stable and non-intrusive upgrade system as we go forward.