5 ms·

VersionPress goes open source

137 points by borekb 10y ago

godzillabrennus 10y ago
What is your business model now that you're not charging for the software?
- borekb 10y ago
  Charging for a GPL'd software (all WordPress plugins have to be GPL, at least in practice) is tricky and most companies in the WordPress space focus on services. Which is what we'll do as well. The technology itself, however, will be free and stay free.
j_s 10y ago
Helpful info for me: VersionPress is a free and open source version control plugin for WordPress built on Git. We increase major version numbers quite rapidly, e.g., VersionPress is at 3.0 at the time of writing this, but that does not mean it is production-ready.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- d2xdy2 10y ago
  Maybe 10.0 will be 'production ready'
- borekb 10y ago
  We try to be very clear about the project status. We would love it to be magically stable soon but unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. Relational databases and (sometimes) crazily coded WordPress plugins do not fit well into the version control workflows, but we're already quite far in terms of the core technology and I'm confident WordPress will be a fully versioned platform one day.
kixpanganiban 10y ago
I put a client's site in a git repo once, but I never figured out how to safely and effectively git the database too. Kudos to VersionPress! I've only learned about them today but they seem to be doing a really solid job.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gumby 10y ago
  Depends how often it changes. In my case I had a db that was a small number of slowly-changing configuration records (a typical web site would probably also be similar) and a large number of log records. I just serialized it once a day and checked everything but the log records into a git repo. The log records were just saved like standard syslog records in two places. Worked fine the one time we needed to restore.
- deepnet 10y ago
  sql's mysqldump CLI command locally or phpmyadmin > export produce a text based db backup in SQL and version that file in git. If it is a huge site split the tables into separate files but 1 file is pretty good for most medium sized clients. Git merging db's can be gnarly if changed significantly, (rollbacks are trivial). This looks very useful and GPL just like Wordpress - excellent!
  - sumoboy 10y ago
    basically do the same with drupal also.
awinter-py 10y ago
The 'merge databases' feature sounds like either a sweet victory of immutable data that makes life easier all around OR something truly horrible that never should have been born. If these guys have solved the WP devops problem, they will be millionaires and candidates for canonization.
- borekb 10y ago
  We're still in the process of solving it but I would be against the rest of the sentence :)
mountaineer22 10y ago
Check out the https://roots.io https://roots.io project, not the same thing, but relevant to "modern" Wordpress dev practices.
rossng 10y ago
This is a problem that's bugged me for a long time - it's good to see people working on it. Deploying and managing most traditional CMSes is a nightmare, IMO. MODX has had something similar for a while with Gitify[1] for the site structure and VersionX[2] for content, but I haven't had much of a chance to use them. [1] https://github.com/modmore/Gitify https://github.com/modmore/Gitify [2] https://modx.com/extras/package/versionx https://modx.com/extras/package/versionx
- sopooneo 10y ago
  It's bugged me too, almost to the point of me thinking I was crazy. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how people were handling these problems with WordPress. And frankly I'm still baffled. I'd get these looooongggg schpeles about workflows tangential to the actual problem and then finally the admission that you just write down or remember the changes you made on staging, and make them on prod as well.
  - borekb 10y ago
    Exactly. VersionPress tries to automate that :)
markorbida 10y ago
I manage hundreds on WP sites and this tool is exactly what our company needs. Im looking forward into trying it out and contributing the project.
markorbida 10y ago
Im not sure if versionpress is having load issues. But Im not able to load any docs.versionpress.net links.
- borekb 10y ago
  Sorry, docs.versionpress.net had HTTPS issues, should be fine now.
colinramsay 10y ago
I've used revisr for this in the past: https://github.com/ExpandedFronts/revisr https://github.com/ExpandedFronts/revisr
- borekb 10y ago
  There are some important differences between VP and revisr: https://blog.versionpress.net/2015/01/versionpress-vs-revisr/ https://blog.versionpress.net/2015/01/versionpress-vs-revisr...

137 points by borekb 10y ago

godzillabrennus 10y ago

What is your business model now that you're not charging for the software?

borekb 10y ago
Charging for a GPL'd software (all WordPress plugins have to be GPL, at least in practice) is tricky and most companies in the WordPress space focus on services. Which is what we'll do as well. The technology itself, however, will be free and stay free.

j_s 10y ago

Helpful info for me: VersionPress is a free and open source version control plugin for WordPress built on Git. We increase major version numbers quite rapidly, e.g., VersionPress is at 3.0 at the time of writing this, but that does not mean it is production-ready.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
d2xdy2 10y ago
Maybe 10.0 will be 'production ready'
borekb 10y ago
We try to be very clear about the project status. We would love it to be magically stable soon but unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. Relational databases and (sometimes) crazily coded WordPress plugins do not fit well into the version control workflows, but we're already quite far in terms of the core technology and I'm confident WordPress will be a fully versioned platform one day.

kixpanganiban 10y ago

I put a client's site in a git repo once, but I never figured out how to safely and effectively git the database too. Kudos to VersionPress! I've only learned about them today but they seem to be doing a really solid job.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gumby 10y ago
Depends how often it changes. In my case I had a db that was a small number of slowly-changing configuration records (a typical web site would probably also be similar) and a large number of log records. I just serialized it once a day and checked everything but the log records into a git repo. The log records were just saved like standard syslog records in two places. Worked fine the one time we needed to restore.
deepnet 10y ago
sql's mysqldump CLI command locally or phpmyadmin > export produce a text based db backup in SQL and version that file in git. If it is a huge site split the tables into separate files but 1 file is pretty good for most medium sized clients. Git merging db's can be gnarly if changed significantly, (rollbacks are trivial). This looks very useful and GPL just like Wordpress - excellent!
- sumoboy 10y ago
  basically do the same with drupal also.

awinter-py 10y ago

The 'merge databases' feature sounds like either a sweet victory of immutable data that makes life easier all around OR something truly horrible that never should have been born. If these guys have solved the WP devops problem, they will be millionaires and candidates for canonization.

borekb 10y ago
We're still in the process of solving it but I would be against the rest of the sentence :)

mountaineer22 10y ago

Check out the https://roots.io https://roots.io project, not the same thing, but relevant to "modern" Wordpress dev practices.

rossng 10y ago

This is a problem that's bugged me for a long time - it's good to see people working on it. Deploying and managing most traditional CMSes is a nightmare, IMO. MODX has had something similar for a while with Gitify[1] for the site structure and VersionX[2] for content, but I haven't had much of a chance to use them. [1] https://github.com/modmore/Gitify https://github.com/modmore/Gitify [2] https://modx.com/extras/package/versionx https://modx.com/extras/package/versionx

sopooneo 10y ago
It's bugged me too, almost to the point of me thinking I was crazy. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how people were handling these problems with WordPress. And frankly I'm still baffled. I'd get these looooongggg schpeles about workflows tangential to the actual problem and then finally the admission that you just write down or remember the changes you made on staging, and make them on prod as well.
- borekb 10y ago
  Exactly. VersionPress tries to automate that :)

markorbida 10y ago

I manage hundreds on WP sites and this tool is exactly what our company needs. Im looking forward into trying it out and contributing the project.

markorbida 10y ago

Im not sure if versionpress is having load issues. But Im not able to load any docs.versionpress.net links.

borekb 10y ago
Sorry, docs.versionpress.net had HTTPS issues, should be fine now.

colinramsay 10y ago

I've used revisr for this in the past: https://github.com/ExpandedFronts/revisr https://github.com/ExpandedFronts/revisr

borekb 10y ago
There are some important differences between VP and revisr: https://blog.versionpress.net/2015/01/versionpress-vs-revisr/ https://blog.versionpress.net/2015/01/versionpress-vs-revisr...