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In this episode of the WP Minute podcast, host Matt discusses various WordPress news and topics.

He starts by highlighting a WordPress.com initiative to encourage people to transfer their domain registration from Google Domains to WordPress.com. Matt also talks about a joint effort by open source projects, including WordPress, to raise concerns about the proposed Cyber Resilience Act in the European Union.

He mentions an article about the new WordPress editor, Gutenberg, and concludes by remembering and honoring two individuals who made significant contributions to the WordPress community. Matt encourages listeners to subscribe to the podcast and mentions available sponsorships.

Matt (00:00:01) – It’s the WP minute support independent WordPress content like this. Go to the WP minute support to purchase us a digital coffee or join the membership. Your $79 a year goes a long way to helping us keep this content coming and we can’t thank you enough for your support. So the experiments continue here on the Short Form podcast kind of today I’ll be pulling some of the more impactful links of the week and chatting about them briefly. Let’s see how we do with this. And as always, if you have some thoughts about how the show should should go, feel free to email me Matt at the WP minute with your feedback and suggestions or if you just want to say hi, let’s get into the WordPress news. So the first link we’re going to talk about today is from WordPress.com and it’s WordPress.com initiative to get folks who are transferring away from Google domains to transfer your domain registration to well, WordPress.com. Here’s just a quick clip of the article. But if your domain name is currently with Google domains, things recently became complicated.

Matt (00:01:03) – You may have heard that your account has been sold to Squarespace. Everything is expected to transfer and closed later this year. Fortunately for you, you’re not locked into that deal and we think we can do better for the first million domains that move from million domains that move from Google to WordPress.com will pay your transfer fee, which also extends your registration for an additional year. And that’s just the beginning. Here’s our commitment to you. When you bring your domain from Google to WordPress.com, your renewal price will be the same or even lower than what you are paying with Google domains. And that goes for every one of the 400 plus top level domains we offer. This will also apply to existing WordPress.com customers across across most domains, meaning that in many cases we’re lowering your prices. This isn’t a temporary thing. We’re committed to keeping the prices domain domain prices low and will only raise them if our wholesale costs go up and then in parentheses will run our domain business like Costco, which I thought was just like an interesting little quip at the end there.

Matt (00:02:04) – So yeah, Google domains. It’s still mind boggling that the company behind what the largest email service or the second largest email service behind Microsoft maybe with Hotmail and exchange rolled into one or Office 365 whatever it’s called now is getting rid of their domain registration business. Squarespace is purchasing it. And interestingly, this is a tweet from Matt Mullins. This might cost a ton of money, but I was bummed we didn’t even get a crack at this. My guess is Cloudflare, GoDaddy and Bluehost in either why Google didn’t make this. Why didn’t Google make this a competitive process question mark concerning to have so many domains going to a proprietary CMS? Yeah, I mean a little jab at Squarespace and closed source CMS, but it was at Google, which I don’t know, have they always been the best stewards of of open source? I guess you could make that argument. They did work hand in hand with WordPress for a while there. So Matt coming out and saying this might cost a ton of money, I don’t think he’s talking about the purchasing price, but of what this renewal.

Matt (00:03:11) – In transition price transfer price is going to cost Automattic to get these domains. So it’s just a nice thing when I guess Tumblr’s burning money and this is just another burning money thing to transfer over. I think maybe the consumers would make their decisions where they want their domains to land. But yeah, I mean, I guess with a ton of domains that are out there, you can’t even imagine. Obviously, he’s saying up to a million they’ll match. I’m sure there is millions more. It is interesting that Google didn’t make it to Squarespace, but hey, these are how the deals are done. I guess at this space it is weird that there was no kind of movement around that with other big tech firms and and stuff like that. So anyway, if you’re transferring away from Google’s domain service, you can go to wordpress.com. Next up is open source unity, joint concerns over the proposed Cyber Resilience Act in the EU. I don’t pretend to know the law of the EU or too much in detail here, but I do want to highlight this because it’s a well, it’s a joint effort.

Matt (00:04:16) – This is an article written by Tim Doyle, Drupal Associate Association CEO. It should come to no surprise that open source projects would act collaboratively, but it’s somewhat of a first in my understanding that Open source matters Inc Joomla Typo three WordPress and the Drupal Association have issued a joint letter to the legislators of the European Union raising concerns with the proposed Cyber Resilience Act and the concerns raised by our four organizations whose communities collectively serve. Over 50% of European websites are significant enough to warrant such a first. The impact of the regulation as proposed would undermine effective software practices in its band on unfinished software chill the contributions of tens of thousands of developers who make free contributions to open source software due to an expansive definition of commercial activity and would impose one size fits all compliance costs, likely causing development to gravitate to large for profit firms that can absorb the costs. Definitely. Read more as this unfolds. I’m sure we’ll report on it here at the WP minute. Stay connected to the newsletter in the podcast as always, the WP minute so you can be well aware of what’s coming next.

Matt (00:05:35) – The next article is from Mika Epstein’s Half Elf Dawg blog titled Interlude Gutenberg Moves Fast. And if you remember in the last episode or the episode before this, I talked about the speed of the whole project is really ramping up and you’re not seeing the changes collectively. But in a year’s time, WordPress is going to be drastically different in my opinion. And there’s a line here from Mika’s opening salvo here. I’ll read the the intro, she says. I’m taking a pause in my plugin post to talk about Gutenberg. Really Love Gutenberg. I’m not kidding. I find it far more enjoyable to write stories and plain apps, but when I write for the web, it’s a more visual medium and Gutenberg is fantastic to represent what I’m writing as it will be properly seen by all but and this is the important part for me. Gutenberg moves fast hella fast so fast they can leave you in the dust. And it has a critical flaw that I feel has been stifling its growth in usage among developers. And then it goes on to talk about JS and your mama’s PHP and the the debate of JavaScript and PHP and what’s right for developers and WordPress, etcetera, etcetera.

Matt (00:06:47) – I’m not a developer. I feel that pain because I don’t even look at JavaScript because I’m like, I will never comprehend this PHP. I could just like skate by understanding it and I just feel like JavaScript has just done a whole other universe to me. But the idea that even this is moving fast for someone like Mika is, I know it’s pretty alarming. Alarming might not be the right word, but it’s proof that this whole project is moving fast, whether we see it or not. And there will be some major, major differences. I mean, the differences are already here. This is why we have this debate about full site editor Gutenberg JavaScript, the old way of doing WordPress. But certainly in one year’s time, I think that WordPress is going to be a whole different animal in terms of an application that we use. So pay attention, read articles like this, but get involved like I had warned in a previous episode. Yeah, because WordPress is definitely changing. And the last link here for me this week is wordpress.org.

Matt (00:07:45) – Slash remembers. WordPress dedicates this page to the memory of those we’ve lost. They’ve shaped our project and enriched our community as we remember their passing and commitment to WordPress and open source software. We celebrate their spirit forever in our hearts. Their legacy endures through every line of code and every user they’ve impacted. And you can scroll down the list of folks that this page is commemorating. Starting off with Kim Parcell passed away in 2015. There’s a little quote. There’s a link to each person’s dot org profile and then a link to a place where they’re sort of being memorialized. I’m certainly going to recommend Clint Warren be added to this list. He’s a friend of mine that passed away many years ago who was really big in the WordPress education space. He was running classes and creating courses and stuff like that. He had put together, I want to say WordCamp New York one year or WordCamp Jersey. I don’t know if there was if there still is a WordCamp New Jersey. But at the bottom of the page says this memorial is volunteer, managed, maintained and managed to add a tribute for a lost contributor.

Matt (00:08:57) – Please contact us at memorials at WordPress. Know. I don’t know if. Does it have to be a contributor? I’m not sure about to find out, but there are three videos of Clint speaking at WordCamp and I think he had an amazing impact not only on myself but the folks around him. So if you want somebody honored from the WordPress space, check out wordpress.org, Slash remembers. That’s it for today’s episode. If you enjoy our content, subscribe to the mailing list. The WP. Com slash subscribe follow the podcast and your favorite podcast app. Both podcasts in fact the WP minute and the WP minute. Plus you can get them at the slash subscribe link or search for us in your favorite podcast app. Just search for the WP minute and add both podcasts. They’re both free, they’re both fun, they’re both about WordPress. Add the WP minute to your podcast app, tell others. And by the way, we’re looking for sponsors for the podcast. You can get your business in front of the WP minute audience starting at $500 for the month.

Matt (00:09:54) – Self sign up right on our site, go to the footer and click on podcast sponsorship. Please support independent content like this really helps keep the lights on. In fact, we need it to keep the lights on. And thanks to our Pillar sponsors Press and Bluehost, without their support, this content wouldn’t be possible. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.

WordPress.com offers to pay domain transfer fees for the first million

  1. WordPress.com is offering to cover the transfer fee for the first million domains that move from Google to WordPress.com. This also extends the domain registration for an additional year.
  2. WordPress.com commits to matching or even lowering the renewal price that users were paying with Google Domains. This applies to over 400 top-level domains (TLDs) they offer. They also promise to keep domain prices low, only raising them if their wholesale costs increase.
  3. WordPress.com has been a domain name provider for over a decade and is committed to the open and inclusive web. They aim to support users’ ability to truly own their content and identity on the web. Users don’t need a site or hosting plan to manage their domains with WordPress.com.

Link

WordPress, Drupal, Typo3, and Joomla join forces

  1. Open Source Matters, Inc. (Joomla), Typo3, WordPress, and the Drupal Association have issued a joint letter to the legislators of the European Union raising concerns about the proposed Cyber Resilience Act. This is a significant move as these four organizations collectively serve over 50% of the European websites.
  2. The organizations argue that the proposed regulation could undermine effective software practices due to its ban on “unfinished software”. They also express concern that the expansive definition of “commercial activity” could deter the contributions of many developers to open source software.
  3. The groups see this as an opportunity to explain the unique role that Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) plays in the software that underpins much of the web and to develop a model for how regulation should be applied to it. They also aim to educate legislators and policy-makers about the shared values that open source communities have with the European Union.

Link

This project is moving hella fast

  1. The author expresses their love for Gutenberg, the block editor for WordPress, but also highlights its rapid pace of development. They note that this speed can sometimes leave developers behind, especially due to the shift from PHP to JavaScript (JS).
  2. The author discusses the challenges of debugging Gutenberg, particularly when encountering errors. They note that unlike PHP, where errors are logged in a file, JS errors are logged in the browser console. This shift in error handling can be confusing for developers used to PHP.
  3. The author criticizes the lack of proper documentation for Gutenberg, particularly when it comes to resolving specific errors. They argue that the current documentation is inadequate and that developers often have to search through GitHub issues to find solutions to their problems. They believe this is one of the reasons why some developers have negative feelings towards Gutenberg.

Link

Remember those that have passed

WordPress dedicates this page to the memory of those we’ve lost. They’ve shaped our project and enriched our community. As we remember their passion and commitment to WordPress and open source software, we celebrate their spirit.

Forever in our hearts, their legacy endures through every line of code and every user they’ve impacted.

Link

From the grab bag!

Here are some other interesting links from the week.

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