Wordpress News & Articles

Welcome to the February installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next month.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.

WordPress (news, site) just launched their own Superman. Labeled the WordPress Foundation, the non-profit org is designed to “democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.”

In other words, and straight from the horse’s mouth:

The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come. As part of this mission, the Foundation will be responsible for protecting the WordPress, WordCamp, and related trademarks.

The goals of the software projects they plan to promote are:

• The software should be licensed under the GNU Public License.
• The software should be freely available to anyone to use for any purpose, and without permission.
• The software should be open to modifications.
• Any modifications should be freely distributable at no cost and without permission from its creators.
• The software should provide a framework for translation to make it globally accessible to speakers of all languages.
• The software should provide a framework for extensions so modifications and enhancements can be made without modifying core code.

Examples of projects that embrace the philosophy include WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, BuddyPress, and of course, the Web CMS itself. 

Feeling charitable? Donate. 

Kaltura (news, site) is making a number of moves lately with its open source video platform. After being listed as one of 10 Innovative Application Companies Under $100M to Watch by IDC you probably expected to start seeing things happening. And happening they are.

Martin Aspeli of the Plone (news, site) project recently sat down and evaluated a "whole slew" of web content management systems. From there, he's digested his observations and shared them in the form of a fairly extensive writeup. While it's obviously Plone-centric, there's a lot that applies to anyone who's trying to choose what Web CMS they want to work with.

Normally in this space we look back over the current month and forward into the next month at what the various open source CMS projects are up to. But rather than blindly putting out an update for January, we thought we'd look farther ahead into what everyone wants to accomplish throughout next year. Call it our open source 2010 predictions with less guesswork and high hopes.

‘Tis the season for milk and cookies, winter coats, and Web CMS release candidates. We writers won’t be back until after the start of 2010 when both WordPress and Movable Type are scheduled to have their official new versions out, so we thought we’d do a quick review of their most recent updates.

If you've ever wanted all your information in one place, your lucky days are upon you. The stars have begun to align and Santa is delivering some early Christmas gifts, including Google's FeedBurner RSS feed that automatically publishes to Twitter, WordPress blogs that can be posted to and read from Twitter apps, and a new Facebook URL shortener.

Whether you are a blogger writing for food or more established at the art of drawing ire from the Associated Press or the FTC, chances are you’re dedicated to whatever it is you blog about. As the world slowly succumbs to wireless fidelity, subway systems and municipalities at the same time, blogging is no longer limited to those on laptops at the local coffee shop or at their home office. No, blogging via mobile device is now more accessible and viable than ever.

CMSWire steps beyond the traditional boundaries of non-traditional media platforms and offers a few tools for mobile blogging. From iPhones to Blackberry to Androids and Storms, these mobile platforms can help you chronicle your adventures while on the go or from where ever you please.

This week Packt (news, site) has announced one winner a day for its 2009 Open Source CMS awards. Already they've revealed that:

• Plone (news, site) won 2009 Best Other Open Source CMS
• Drupal (news, site) won 2009 Best Open Source PHP CMS and the first inaugural 2009 Hall of Fame award
• ImpressCMS (news, site) won 2009 Most Promising Open Source CMS

Today's category is the last: 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS.

Congratulations to WordPress (news, site) for taking home the crown. Tied for runners up are MODx (news, site) and SilverStripe (news, site).

The WordPress project receives US$ 4,000 in prize money, while MODx and SilverStripe each receive US$ 2,500. In addition to the money, WordPress also becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame category next year.

In the winners' announcement, Packt Publishing stated that, "After Pixie and Pligg [tied for runners up] for the Most Promising CMS category, this is the second time the combined opinion of judges and the public was evenly divided for two CMSes, awarding each of them a first runner up spot."

Hannon Hill (news, site) goes all social with its latest update for Cascade Server CMS, offering access to Twitter and WordPress with more to follow.

For most of us, a good day is being able to go about our business without any annoyances getting in our way. Unfortunately, when your business involves the Internet, mere annoyances rate much higher on the "good" scale than, say, discovering your Web CMS was hacked at least six months ago and you've been leaking critical user data like a sieve.

If that user data involves sensitive information such as medical data, credit card numbers, bank account information or anything else that is subject to either regulations or sleepless nights over losing your shirt, you should at least investigate security add-ons.

Billed as a content platform for Web developers, here comes BitsyBox offering data stores, easy editing and a content delivery network in one hosted Web CMS.

It's that time again. WordPress (news, site) is just a little ways away from releasing their 2.9 milestone and they need all the help they can get to exterminate the lingering pests.

Everyone is invited to join in on the two scheduled massacres. The first is November 5-7 (WordPress is stretching this one through the weekend to accommodate as many schedules as possible) and the second will take place November 14-16. Want to kill vermin right alongside Mark Jaquith? Head over to WordCamp NYC (which coincides with the second hunt) and visit the special Hacker Room, a location set up for developers to visit and work on 2.9 bug tickets together.

There are 3 ways in which to participate:

• Test: Review all the patches that need testing by reviewing WordPress' report here. Jot your results in the comments section for all to review.
• Fix: WordPress has also provided a report for bugs that need patches. They encourage you to target the ones that seem like they'd wreak the most havoc or would have the biggest impact once fixed.
• Report: If you find a brand new bug, create a ticket.

New to the bug hunt process? Don't worry, WordPress believes in equal opportunity. Check out the process for becoming part of the team here. 

Products in the simple CMS arena should be light, focussed, but still leave the user with a positive feel. How does now out-of-beta Viviti stack up?

Hannon Hill's Web CMS (news, site) Cascade Server 6.4 (beta) is now available for download, offering a new framework for interacting with data from other services.