I’m Thankful For WordPress

There’s a lot of things I’m thankful for: my family, my dog, a freelancer’s freedom, Christ. But as it pertains to my livelihood I’m particularly thankful for WordPress.

Not only was WordPress my kick-start into standards-based web design, but it has since served as my primary CMS of choice. I don’t need to go into features that make WordPress great. They are and if you don’t believe me I can prove it to you elsewhere.

The WordPress feature-set is nice, but I’m most thankful for everything surrounding WordPress. Community: IRC, forums, thousands of WP-centered blogs with great info, WordCamps, passion.

I’d like to touch on that last note: passion. I’ve seen some passionate people around the WordPress-o-sphere for a while, but I’ve recently just really noticed it. I’ve always felt passionate about WordPress, but of course the fire grows.

Any sort of product, service, company, etc. with a following there will have turmoil at some point. WordPress licensing debates have gone on forever, but within the past year they’ve really blown up. The same sort of fiery issues come up every once in a while (i.e. commercial plugins, duplicating premium themes, wp.org progress, MU, etc.). Those on both sides of an issue dig their trenches and seemingly burrow deeper and deeper as the argument continues.

Of course fighting for your stance tooth and nail isn’t anything new. But what amazes me is that WordPress can cause it. For starters, WordPress is six years old. In part, its infancy is probably a cause of some of the issues. Nevertheless, it hasn’t be around long and already there are enough users divided amongst themselves. It’s not a good thing, but it is cool to see so many people making their cases because they care.

No one would waste their time arguing about WordPress if they didn’t care — almost no one, that is. Sure, there’s some people that argue because they just like to disagree with people. Others do so selfishly and care not what is best for WordPress but for themselves. For the most part, though, people want to see WordPress succeed (beyond what it’s incredibly achieved so far).

So we argue debate because we care.

Sometimes we just need a reminder of what we’re thankful for. Keep that in mind if you’re amongst those of us who spend time (too much?) trying to figure out where WordPress is, where it should go and how to get there.

Happy Thanksgiving.