DrupalCon New Orleans 2016: Lessons from WordPress Core

Drupal and WordPress started in similar places culturally and technologically. After beginning with Benevolent Dictators for Life writing PHP 4 code the projects diverged. The split is most visible in governance models and the managing of legacy code. Now that Drupal is past 8.0.0 we are closer to WordPress than many realize. We are striving for scheduled minor releases (every six months) that maintain backwards compatibility. WordPress releases feature-adding point releases every four months and has maintained backwards compatibility for years.

This presentation will cover specific lessons that we can take from WordPress including:

The release lead role (a different person setting the agenda for each point release every four months).

How new features are added to WordPress Core.

Managing commit access for WordPress Core.

WordPress patch-based workflow.

Comparison of Acquia and Automattic.

Calypso, an alternate administrative interface, written in JavaScript that relies on a REST API.

User trust

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