I'm just a soul whose intentions are good / Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

I'm sorry if anyone feels surprised by the roadmap of having bbPress start to become a WordPress "core plugin" in the 1.2 timeframe, it was discussed (and posted to the blog) in the December 9th and 30th meetups, to a healthy debate that raised some of the same issues that have been brought up here.

It breaks my heart to see JJJ and PeteMall who are just getting started have to absorb the negative energy for 5-6 years of decisions they had nothing to do with so if like "wtfmatt" above you want to ascribe all of that to me I'm happy to bear the brunt of it. Let's let them experiment, try something new, and see what happens. Then we can channel our worries (oh noes, this will break everything!) into positive outcome (you forgot an action in the template which breaks my plugin, here's a two-line patch to fix backward compatibility).

We have to be careful with our words because they can have a demotivating effect beyond what you can know, which could stagnate bbPress' development (again).

Finally, there is obviously some pent-up umbrage over many decisions that have been made in the history of bbPress, and I think it would be healthy to talk about those and do a post-mortem to see what we can learn from them. However this thread has already become tainted, and we don't have message threading here, so it'd probably be best to start a new thread per issue. Tag it with "formatt" and I promise I'll reply as thoughtfully as I can.

It's a Sunday but I'm here again. Despite everything bbPress holds a special place in my heart as it was the first project I wrote from scratch applying everything I had learned from working on b2 née WordPress.

The decision to allow Pete and myself the opportunity to do the bbPress plugin conversion wasn't only Matt's to make, and was agreed on by a committee of all of our peers running the 3.org initiatives, in #wordpress-dev on freenode, and on the WordPress development blog.

The reason it's bbPress 1.2 rather than bbPress 2.0 (at least as it stands today) is because part of the coding standards we adhere to is not inflating version numbers. Could always see if everyone agrees to inflate based on the amount of new code going in, but I don't think that's my decision to make, and I would wager that it's unlikely to happen? Been wrong before though.

I thought there were several pretty solid answers above, but I'll give my take here. For me, it's mostly about performance. bbPress (especially the 0.9 branch) is fairly fast. As the bbPress frontpage puts it, "bbPress is lean, mean and ready to take on any job you throw at it." I agree!

WordPress is powerful and has many fantastic plugins and themes. But I don't think many people would argue that it is lean and mean. It requires caching in order to have a reasonable number of queries and/or loading time.

When someone asks me if they should use WordPress, I always recommend they use a heavyweight hosting package. With bbPress, this hasn't been the case. Now with a plugin version, that will change.

In any case, I'm not your target audience: I use bbPress to run larger sites. Most people who want a forum will have small forums. They will be perfectly happy with a bbPress plugin - in fact, happier because it will be easier to integrate.

But it won't scale easily without lots of caching and expensive hardware. That's why I prefer a standalone.

"In all honesty, all this back and forth is tiring, and all it's doing is taking the team of people that are here to help keep bbPress alive, and make us the enemy to the people that are just happy to see life again. That, and it's taken our ability to communicate news to the bbPress community away from us, and instead forced us to try and put out this fire for the past 4 days."

I totally respect your right to take bbPress and "buddyPress" it into a WordPress plugin. My only request has been to use a different name.

Matt's actually a really nice guy from what I have read and heard. If he would ever have a vegan meal instead of all that meat, I'd even have lunch with him. He was one of the first and few people to donate towards a replacement monitor when mine failed.

I just disagree, strongly in some cases, with his decisions that seem to be done rather suddenly with little or no input from others, that radically affect a great many people. I disagree heavily with the concept of "code sprints" that he seems to like so much and most especially shoving in "features" into the core that should be plugins.

As far as forking, you have no idea what you are asking. It's a ton of work and responsibility. Anyone can fork, but we'd run into exactly the same problems, who owns the domain, who owns the project name, who owns/operates the servers, are major decisions done by one person or by the community, etc. You are basically asking someone else to do the work for you, for free. If you want a fork, hire a coder and fork it, you don't need anyone's permission.

Is Matt planning to just "nuke" all the existing content on bbPress.org ?

That's what I've been saying for friggin 3 months.

Why do the biggest plugin devs here keep wasting hours/weeks/years dealing with Matt and his falsely-seeming-reasonable "team"?

THEY DONT CARE ABOUT YOU.

Who is ready to fork this community into a standalone project for Christ's sake? Why the hesitation people? I know you aren't lazy. So what is it exactly... you are trying to be political here? Screw that. And screw Matt.

_ck_... you'd rather let bbPress die than let it be reborn and successful as a plugin?

To clarify, I'd rather see the name "bbPress" be retired than recycle the name for another purpose when there are years of development and history already in existence.

I have no problem with you/automattic/whomever making a new forum program, zero problem with it and I honestly wish you the best.

My problem is calling it "bbPress" when it has virtually nothing to do with the original bbPress project. Even worse, it's being called bbPress 1.2 which is downright weird. 1.2 implies updates to 1.1 - but this is a complete rewrite into something else.

The only reasons I can conclude why it's being called bbPress is because Automattic/Matt already owns the name, and y'all can't think of another name or simply don't want to bother.

Like I said before, and feel it's worthy of explaining again: What if the WordPress core was suddenly completely re-invented on a whim, breaking all compatibility, and it was simply called "WordPress 3.1". Wouldn't that be really dumbfounding and confusing to the community?

@gswaim - the reason why this topic isn't being closed, is because this is the most conversation we've EVER had about bbPress's future/politics. Even during the backPress changeover we had nothing really like this, just bits and pieces. Matt would make a decision and we'd hear about it a month later during an interview or speech.

I believe this talk/venting is good and healthy as long as it's not done by attacking individuals personally.

And I'd rather see it all focused here in this topic than a dozen topics eventually created on the subject, (especially since after all these years we still do not have a topic merge function in the api).

But if you want it closed in the hopes it will end people's feelings on the subject, that's not really how people behave/think is it?

I didn't expect that from one of bbPress's most vocal supporters and longest standing contributing members.

That being said, I very much appreciate your volunteering to continue to maintain the 0.9 branch; I appreciate everyone that's worked hard on the 1.1 branch; and I very much look forward to the success of the 1.2 branch.

If I wasn't on my iPad I'd quote myself volunteering personally to commit any bug fixes to the 1.1x branch of code if anything comes up, but again, that went totally unresponded to.

All of the things I've offered to do, to help continue the 1.1x branch of standalone code in addition to creating the 1.2 plugin, have gone totally unacknowledged. If you want to be able to do it yourself, you'll need to have the experience to understand that the code you write is responsible for powering millions of sites around the world, and that you can easily create global chaos with one click of a button. Call me melodramatic, but in environments like WordPress.com, it's very true. My experience over the past year has had me much more close to that kind of environment, particulalrly with BuddyPress.

A year ago I felt keeping bbPress as a standalone made sense because a year ago I didn't comprehend what was coming in WordPress, particularly 3.0 where custom post types have made much more possible. I also had less experience with BackPress, and don't get me wrong; BackPress is awesome, but bbPress won't reach its full potential until it's a plugin for 25 million other websites.

Kevinjohn, I'm sorry but you've got a knack for twisting words around and quoting things totally out of context. That's not really fair, and I wouldn't do it to you or anyone else so I'd appreciate the same.

I don't get what you all want bbPress to do differently that would even require a new standalone version. I've asked that before, and there's no answer; just frustration.

bbPress has always been an Automattic endorsed project, and considering without Matt it wouldn't exist, or have a trac, an svn, or core developers thus far, it seems like he's the one who's earned the ability to make decisions on the future of the project. If you call me believing that to be true drinking that Kool Aid, I'm happy to do it because I believe Matt and Automattic and bbPress has earned that from me. If Matt wanted to abandon bbPress completely and close up shop, he could, and someone could graciously keep it alive by forking it. None of that stuff, should make anyone this upset.

My employment status or relationship with Automattic aside, I'm happy, blessed, and consider it a great privilege to have the trust of Automattic and the surrounding community to take this on, even if some of you don't understand why it's me, or why now, or why a plugin.

Regarding TalkPress, the main reason it's named differently is to avoid the confusion people have with WordPress.org and WordPress.com. bbPress is the opensource forum software of choice for WordPress users. If any of you want to help the plugin work on top of backpress, patches welcome and I'm open to the idea. Otherwise, I'd wager 60% or more of the support questions regarding bbPress are incorporating it with WordPress. It's been said in this topic already, but making it a plugin alleviates those issues, and still allows everyone to keep loving bbPress.

In all honesty, all this back and forth is tiring, and all it's doing is taking the team of people that are here to help keep bbPress alive, and make us the enemy to the people that are just happy to see life again. That, and it's taken our ability to communicate news to the bbPress community away from us, and instead forced us to try and put out this fire for the past 4 days.

Quite frankly, it all kinda sucks.

I get that the reality (for some of you) of switching bbPress to rely on WordPress instead of BackPress doesn't sit well or even make sense, but I promise you it does. I might even have a trick that will help make the admin area a little more familiar. But 1.2 isn't going to use BackPress anymore. Instead it's going to use WordPress. bbPress itself is getting lighter, and we inherit all the eyes and updates that WordPress has had that BackPress hasn't. That alone, if you ask me, is more than enough reason to be thankful for this move. If you need it super optimized, we'll inherit all the caching plugins for WordPress. If you need bells and whistles, we get WP plugins. There is too much to gain, to not have bbPress be a WP plugin.

The existing standalone committers, are doing a great job already. There are very few trac tickets to work through in terms of bug fixes, and most of the enhancements would naturally get fixed by making it a plugin.

So... I want to say again, your passion and enthusiasm is something I want, and appreciate. If any of you are going to WordCamp Savannah, I'll gladly discuss this over drinks and dinner. Whatever you need, I want to make it happen for you, but the name isn't changing, Myself and the team are going to support the standalone with security updates as needed. Since I have commit access, I'm happy to commit fixes as needed because I've been trusted with that ability and I want everyone happy with a safe and functional piece of software, plugin or standalone.

I also, typed this out entirely on my iPad over the course of an hours worth of "leisure time." if that doesn't say you have my attention and commitment, I dunno what does. :)

That said, I think it would avoid a lot of confusion if it were named something else besides "bbPress".

Like everyone else, you're entitled to your opinion; and i am truly sorry if i've left you with an overly negative one - though I apprecaite I am a tad less forgiving of people who can't even get my name right ;-)

But I've regretted over the past year or two not voicing enough concern at the start over backPress so now I simply do not want to see another big mistake, the bbPress name hijacked for a third, completely different forum program.

My request is quite simple: do whatever else you'd like but please do not call it bbPress when it has no relationship with any previous version of bbPress.

If bbPress truly is an open source community project and not exclusively owned/managed by Automattic, well then here's the chance to prove that.

If Matt suddenly announced that WordPress would radically change from 3.0 to 3.1 and out of the blue use a newly developed core that completely invalidated all existing themes, plugins, utilities and knowledgebase - wouldn't you be just a little bit concerned and upset? Would you speak up or "go with the flow" ?

In the above scenario, if you were new to WP 3.1, you wouldn't care and would wonder why people were complaining so much. But if you had a few years invested, maybe you'd feel a little differently. Maybe you'd ask them to leave the old version alone and call it something else.

They are extremely vocal and belligerent members who have dictated the tone of the community for over a year. kevin smiles while talking over you, but it isn't any less damaging.

Frankly if this site is moved to an alternate subdomain and they disappear completely, *that alone* would improve the bbpress experience.

Thank you for keeping us informed on the progress and your intents. Please focus on coding and not community management on this point. The only "community" here are a dozen diehard, entrenched and bitter people who have been too stubborn to adjust their vision over the year we have known this change was coming.

So there's a solution. With a new name, it's clearly a different product and there are no expectations and no conflict.

I'd promise not to join or comment on it in any way and you can start with fresh faces ignorant of any legacy baggage.

Pete's status, isn't any different than the way you all feel about things. If you can vent your frustrations, so can he.

I'd never like to step on Pete's rights or freedoms. He can say what he wants when he wants. But it's just shame he didn't have the common decency or manners to tell us... before bitching to the world.

If Pete's not happy about some of the things in this thread, and we're the people he's going to have to (or wants to) live with as we move forward "together", then he should have commented here.

JJJ your comments and Q/A attempts have helped a great deal. Of course there is still some polorisation and discontent, this is heavy (and for some peole horrible) news; people aren't going ot be ok with it as soon as somone says "everything's going to be A-okay". Even if thats true, and I think it is and eventually things will be ok, there's still loads that needs to be talked out before people can make an informed decision.

But y'know, talk it out, address the issues here, and win people over. Making snidey remarks on Twitter in the hope that no-one from bbpress will see it is just... poor/childish/cowardly. Feel free to pick one, I pick all 3.

I'm vocal, and according to Sam Bauers I use "combative" wording (which is rarely my intention). I've agreed and disagreed with the same people here over the years; and I'm sure to many they hate to see my name appear in that last poster column ;-) But on the left hand side here where it says my name it links to my website, where my email/phone is listed. Many people here use it, and I am more than happy for them and others to do so - even if they disagree/like/dislike with me. If i have something to say about bbPress, i say it here. I say it to the people that are giving up their time for bbPress, and earned my respect by doing so, and JJJ that includes you :)

I suppose it comes down to this:

• When, in life, are people ok about being talked about behind their backs, instead of to their face?
• How on earth do you think this would help pull the community together?

1. bbPress 1.1 (standalone) - Still in active development
2. bbPress 1.2 (plugin) - Months before anyone should consider it stable, but you're welcome to jump on the bandwagon early and help make it exactly the way you want it, side by side with Pete and myself, and anyone else that's along for the ride.

1. But you've told us that, with 1 trac ticket to go, this would be the last to be supported and or maintained. You also told us that it wont be supported once the plugin comes out. Thats freaking people out.

I can understand your entusiasm at the newst version, but surely you can at least see this viewpoint (even if you odn't agree with it).

2. Here's the scenario: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2003-10-12/

You're the manager, we're dilbert, our clients/users are the client.
Even if that wasn't the intention, thats where we are bro.

Ironically I would have far more easily accepted another forum project being started by Matt and unfortunately letting bbPress slowly die over what is being done now.

Me too. I just hope, hope, hope we'll close the missing tickets and release the next standalone version asap!

Justin Tadlock's forum plugin avoids these problems. Why can't the new Automattic created one too?
http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/07/16/a-wordpress-forum-plugin-using-custom-post-types

You can't just up-end a community and then ask everyone to be positive about it.

Zero consultation was done with the community/contributors, exactly the same amount that was done with backPress. Let's be CRYSTAL CLEAR about that right from the start.

For the people showing up out of the blue and jumping into the bbpress project suddenly this year, having NEVER contributed in the past few years, and in effect telling us to "shut up and go along with it" - I am seriously not going to take that nonsense, even if you say "please".

You don't just take a project and completely re-write it into something else and take it's name. It's not yours, it belongs to the community who adopted the existing program and worked many hours to install it, figure out bugs and improve it. It's not yours to show up late and completely re-invent after that.

You don't wash away the years of forum questions and answers by intermingling them with a different, incompatible version.

You don't just call it 1.2 when it will have nearly zero code/layout/theme/compatibility with 0.9/1.0/1.1 - I mean sheesh, even calling it 2.0 would have been a minimal effort to note it's something different but no, 1.2 is to confuse as many as possible either on purpose or out of apathy.

You don't insist it has nothing to with Automattic when the SVN/TRAC slots were decided and made by Automattic people on Automattic servers at Matt's directive as a plugin for another Automattic managed product.

The main developer of bbPress 0.8/0.9 was an Automattic employee (Michael) under Matt's directive, the main developer of 1.0 was an Automattic employee (Sam) under Matt's directive. It's an Automattic product, always will be. Matt has been trying to figure out how to monetize it for years which is why it keeps getting messed with, so he can make a wordpress.com equivalent for forums.

Even JJJ admitted a YEAR AGO, that it's a good thing bbPress is separate from WordPress because of how blogs and forums are different even though they share similar data structures. But now it's a 180 turn in the opposite direction because of Matt's whim.

If you want me and the other people who have a problem with this to shut up, it is SUPER SIMPLE to end this problem:

1. don't call it bbPress
2. start another Automattic site to build your forum plugin
   (or attach it to a wordpress.org subdomain which probably would have been more appropriate)
3. finish what was started: it's too late for 0.9 to be properly finished as it should have been into 1.0 before the 180 with backPress but it's not too late for 1.1 to be released and then matured into 1.2

Don't just march into an existing community, take it over and change it's course into another 180 turn for the second time in three years and expect anyone to just smile and go along with it.

What you aren't seeing are the 10,000+ sites that don't post here and have successfully adopted it, even with virtually no advertising or support from the WordPress community.

Ironically I would have far more easily accepted another forum project being started by Matt and unfortunately letting bbPress slowly die over what is being done now.

WordPress + BuddyPress + W3 Total Cache = less than 10 queries on a complete social network. If optimization is your cup of tea, there's lots of ways you can achieve that. Core issues with WP should be directed over to those folks.

If you have a method to make it better, submit a patch. Then you can work your way up to being one of 'those people' that are making the decisions that you don't agree with.

Pete's status, isn't any different than the way you all feel about things. If you can vent your frustrations, so can he.

Help me understand why we're upset again.

1. bbPress 1.1 (standalone) - Still in active development
2. bbPress 1.2 (plugin) - Months before anyone should consider it stable, but you're welcome to jump on the bandwagon early and help make it exactly the way you want it, side by side with Pete and myself, and anyone else that's along for the ride.

Regarding # 1, what MORE do you want your lightweight standalone software to do? If you want it to be more efficient, spend some time walking through queries and making it that way. If you want something in the UI changed, do it; patch it; make it go, and I will review it, and commit it.

Regarding # 2, our goal is to have this usable ASAP as part of the 3.org initiatives, but I wouldn't want anyone outside of that initiative using it for production until it's released. I know we all like to live on the bleeding edge (I've always been that guy too) so now's your time to start helping us weld things in from the very get-go. If you think the way we've doing it now is completely wrong, let us know and provide us a better way; I am happy to listen and make it right, because I want what you want; the best bbPress possible.

I think all this talk about Matt, and Automattic, should be redirected back towards Automattic the company, and not bbPress the open source software. I understand the two are perceived to be tightly integrated because mixing money and open source is mixing business with pleasure, and it's always hard to explain or understand the difference.

I think the general negativism has taken its toll already, and it's time to try to look at this glass as half full going forward. Please? Kindly? :D

Not trying to be a jerk here, but man... there is no end in sight here, and it just isn't productive or helpful anymore. We need to tighten this ship up before it sinks itself. I say this, not from a "looking down" perspective, but from a "'we're in this together so let's make the best of it" perspective.

_CK_ I'd really like to know why you think this is an auttomatic decision? Neither Pete nor JJJ work for Automattic. As far as WordPress goes, multiple lead developers/committers are non Automattic employees. WordPress is a Meritocracy. The more you contribute, the more you demonstrate an understanding of the philosophy, the more responsibility and influence that you have. If you find your opinions are being ignored, I suggest trying to influence those that have contributed diplomatically or contributing patches.

I can also feel for all the contributors to current and past iterations of bbPress, who may have felt left in the dark, or unappreciated. Well, I appreciate you!

I've got a little niche community site right now. The site has a blog, and a classifieds section, and a bbPress forum. I've got integrated login working, but would love to have even more integration between bbPress and WordPress (especially shared header and footer, and it would be good to have just a single "profile" associated with members of my site).

As digging into code is not my most favorite thing, I'm hoping that bbPress-as-WP-plugin can simplify all of my WordPress projects.

I'm aware that some people may want to keep a standalone bbPress project going, even if only the maintenance of current and former iterations of bbPress.

And I can see that using the same name "bbPress" for both the upcoming bbPress-as-WP-plugin, and the current-and-former-standalone-bbPress-iterations that may be continually maintained, is potentially a source of confusion.

But, I don't think it has to be confusing.

If a central location, such as this website, clearly presents and describes the differences between using the upcoming bbPress-as-WP-plugin and current-and-former-standalone-bbPress-iterations, then I think people will be able to decide what is best for them.

If I understand correctly, Matt was the original coder (and I'm guessing namer) of bbPress. And it seems that he is the top caller of shots for how bbPress goes forward. As such, I don't think he should need to rename bbPress-as-WP-plugin to anything other than bbPress, even tho so many other people have been making bbPress what it is today.

But if he did rename it to something like pbPress (plugin-board-press), it might simplify things. How about ccPress (community-creation-press)?

That's my though-gasm in this moment anyway. Thanks to all of you who have gotten bbPress to where it is today, and to all of you who are moving bbPress forward, and also to all who are mindful of moving forward in a fashion that is not unduly regressive :)

That said, I'd like to say that I really, really appreciate Kevin's posts here. He is speaking for a lot of people, whether he knows it or not. He does a great job of summing up a lot of the feelings us long-time bbPress users are feeling right now.

I am really perplexed by some of the actions and statements by Matt, and now Pete's Twitter post. Maybe it's because I'm not a coder and have never been involved with an open source project. But it seems strange that you'd allow a few passionate people with questions annoy you so much. Instead of wanting to give up on it, why not engage with us a little more? Why not ask a moderator to make a Sticky announcement? Why not write a blog post announcing the new bbPress plugin?

I repeat: I think the bbPress plugin is a great idea. I just feel we haven't been kept in the loop very well.

People have the right to be blindly optimistic, regardless if there were not one but two different versions of bbPress that were never finished. I mean it should be different by the third time around right?

Seriously: I'd suggest starting with outlining how the Automattic version of the plugin is going to be different/better than the two other existing WP forum plugins, what audience it's going to address, what it definitely will and definitely won't do.

I've been around since WP 1.5 and when bbPress 0.80 was released, so it's extremely easy for me to be jaded.

This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor by watching changes carefully here and reading every line of code submitted since it's starting from scratch:

http://trac.bbpress.org/browser/branches/plugin

You're words are astute as always.

1.1 is stable, and looking good :D

I doubt there's one person involved with bbPress that isn't looking forward to it's alpha release so we can get some bug fixes, and then truly thank you and everyone else who added code to it.

Even the people still using 0.9 know and apprecaite how much works goes into it :)

And about making a living, it can also be done with bbPress as a WP plugin :)

Yes mate, no doubt.

But we've hit this scenario: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2003-10-12/

:D

The forum topic is this one and the announcement is here (I know no one told any of us about this blog).

You nailed the issue mate.
You and I, and those of us interested in WP development picked up on it. Those who use bbP as standalone, who are those most affected, won't have. Hence, some of the backlash.

This could all be really positive, in an odd way I think the underlying desire for info is positive :) JJJ being here is positive :) Seeing old names and faces pop up is positive :) I'm confident if 10 of us were in a room right now, this would all be sorted and we'd be coding up a storm :) It just needs a controlled conversation, some community interfacing and ofcourse, no-one bitching about bbPress on twitter.

For those of us who make a living with bbPress, unilateral decisions made without visibility and with no re-course for questioning nor appeal are scary. really scary.

At least v1.1 is there for the time being, hopefully that would be released soon (after 2 bugs on 1.0.3 and 1.1 are fixed). It's pretty stable and those who want to run a standalone, can run it and customize it with existing plugins/themes.
And about making a living, it can also be done with bbPress as a WP plugin :)

I think people are allowed to be a little shell-shocked at this bombshell; especially as it didn't even warrant its own forum post, sticky or blog post. It just comes across as a footnote and unimportant.

The forum topic is this one and the announcement is here (I know no one told any of us about this blog).

For others - Justin just posted about the WP forum plugin that he has made on his own - http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/07/16/a-wordpress-forum-plugin-using-custom-post-types

I totally agree with the premise.
Focussing on the positives is the way forward.

For those of us who make a living with bbPress, unilateral decisions made without visability and with no re-course for questioning nor appeal are scary. really scary.

I for one, am totally and 100% behind the separate forum plugin for WordPress. But I think it's ok that we ask some questions about it, and while the thread's not in the most positive tone, I don't think anyone has asked anything from left field, nor said anything antagonistic or derogatory.

It's not like we're asking for info that won't have already been discussed when making the decision about plugin vs. standalone.

There would have been bench tests, user experiences, requirement gather - y'know numbers and paperwork. I know we're never going to see the full documentation, but I think it's ok to ask for an overview. Not to pick holes in it, but to feel positive that the decision is a good one, and one that we can get behind/support/make better :)

=======================================================================

Andrew, Pete and JJJ and I have had a wee email conversation earlier in the week, before (and during) this thread started. There was some truly great info in that thread. Information that would appease some of the issues brought up here, quell some of the language & tone being used. It confirmed to me that these are the people to take bbPress forward. But that doesn't mean I am going to put my own and my children's livelyhood on the line and follow blindly.

everything is going to be A-okay

is alot like

Relax. We've done this before.

And man, that didn't work out too well :(

I think people are allowed to be a little shellshocked at this bombshell; especially as it didn't even warrant it's own forum post, sticky or blog post. It just comes across as a footnote and unimportant. It comes across as "shit, you folks found out? um..." Now of course that ain't true, but thats the base perception.

Apparently the scrapping of all current bbPress code and new of it's replacement isn't even important enough for someone to hit that "sticky" button at the bottom.

Because of this, some emotions will run high, but we've both been around the block enough to know that as long as people keep the conversation in house and try to resolve things then we'll get there :)

Not everyone will agree with everything, but we'll get there as long as no-one makes any derogatory comments about the software or community in a KeyNote speech or on an influential Twitter feed we'll be grand at resolving this, and bringing folks tegether in a positive sense :)

The dudes who are now running the show just need to give out enough info to get control of the conversation. Once that happens, even more of life will be positive.

...it's not "Automattic" that decides what ends up in the core of WordPress - we have open discussions to set the feature lists for each release and the decisions are driven based on input from a large base of regular contributors.

You are kidding yourself if you think the community is given anything but choices on minor things. Major decisions that change the entire direction of these projects for Automattic are made every year by Matt. Changing bbPress to use backPress is the #-1 example of a single sourced decision done without any input from any contributors. bbPress as a WordPress plugin is another one.

The very first simple question I asked when I heard about backPress is "when will WordPress be changed to also use backPress" (to benefit from all the work needed and the theoretical savings from using a common function set). It's a very easy problem to predict but was never asked and never answered, ending us up exactly where we are today.

Can we focus on the positives:

bbPress was laying there dormant - it now has a future. This future isn't going to suit everyone but that's life.

Exactly.