The lack of changelogs in a lot of WordPress plugins is something that’s bothered me for a while, and I wasn’t the only one. I’m very wary of upgrading plugins, and when I see that a plugin needs to be upgraded in my WordPress dashboard, I’d like to know exactly what’s being changed. It might be a major security fix, it might be a minor bug, it might not be a necessary update at all. Changelogs give this information to end users about changes from version to version.

Well, there’s some good news for all of you who like to check out the changelogs before upgrading plugins, but it’ll require some action on behalf of the plugin authors. There is now a standardized way of adding changelog information to the plugin’s readme.txt file. To plugin authors wondering how to do this, read this post on Peter Westwood’s blog. This information will then be displayed on a dedicated “Changelog” tab on the plugin’s page on the WordPress.org plugin repository.

I know themes aren’t usually updated as often as plugins are, but I’m wondering if it would be difficult to implement something similar for WordPress themes hosted in the official theme directory. Anyone have any thoughts about changelogs for themes too?

For those not following the latest WordPress and GPL theme news lately, some big stuff has happened in the past week or so. First, iThemes announced they were going GPL, and WooThemes followed suit later in the week.

Some people reading this blog might have no idea what I’m talking about when I’m referring to GPL themes, because I’ve never discussed it here before. Why? Because most of the discussions I’ve seen regarding the GPL and WP themes are extremely arduous, and more importantly…inconclusive.

Basically the GPL license says while there is nothing wrong with charging for GPL software, users are free to modify it and redistribute code without permission of the original author. This means someone could legally buy a commercial GPL-licensed theme, and re-release it for free.

Alex King reminded people of this fact, and the mere idea of exercising the rights granted by the GPL led to quite a bashing in the comments. Some commenters even went so far as to say they’ve lost “all respect” Alex, again, for merely pointing out the idea, not actually doing it. Alex later apologized for that post he made earlier.

While I think those people who lost “all respect” for Alex King (as a result of that post) completely missed the point, it did bring up some interesting questions. While I don’t believe there’s any doubt that modifying and redistributing GPL themes is in fact legal, I think the real question is: is it ethical or not?

In my opinion, piggybacking off the hard work of these developers, who are trying to make a living off their themes, by undercutting them for a few quick bucks is not ethical. I believe the true value in buying almost any commercial theme is not just the theme itself, but also quality support. In my eyes, there’s no better place to get support than the original source.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Is it ethical? Are commercial theme authors truly embracing the GPL? Sound off in the comments. This is probably the first and last post I’ll ever make on this topic, so make it count.

Since WordPress 2.8 was just released yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea for this week’s issue of WordPress Weekend Resources to focus specifically on 2.8-related content.

WordPress Version 2.8 – The WordPress 2.8 page over at the Codex. The page is broken up into 4 parts: highlights, new features, advanced features, and features that did not make it. Definitely worth skimming through to get an idea of all that was added.

WordPress 2.8: What’s new – An extensive post on what’s new in WordPress 2.8, mostly from a developer’s point of view. Things like the new body_class function, proxy support, and relational navigation links, among other new features are all covered on this article.

WordPress 2.8 And 10 Things That You Should Know Before/After You Upgrade – This post goes over 2 things to go over before upgrading, and 8 things you should be aware of after upgrading. Aside from the obvious theme/plugin compatibility check, it also goes over a number of the updated features present in 2.8, complete with screenshots.

There are a few more in-depth articles on specific WordPress 2.8 features, although the above are mostly roundups. If you know of any other WordPress 2.8-related resources, feel free to post in the comments.