Clarification of Guideline 8 – Executable Code and Installs

Since Jetpack announced it installs themes, a number of people have asked if this is a violation of the 8th guideline:

The plugin may not send executable code via third-party systems.

And in specific, these two items:

  • Serving updates or otherwise installing plugins, themes, or add-ons from servers other than’s
  • Installing premium versions of the same plugin

The short answer is no, it’s not, and yes, you could do this too.

The longer answer involves understanding the intent of this guideline, which initially was to prevent nefarious developers from using your installs as a botnet. In addition, it’s used to disallow plugins that exist only to install products from other locations, without actually being of use themselves (ie. marketplace only plugins). Finally it’s there to prevent someone silly from making a plugin that installs a collection of ‘cool plugins’ they found from GitHub and want to make easier to install. Which actually did happen once.

Plugins are expected to do ‘something’ to your site. A plugin that exists only to check a license and install a product, while incredibly useful, is not something we currently allow as a standalone product. This is why we allow plugins to have the in-situ code for updates that is used by their add-on plugins. The plugin we host has to use to update itself.

In addition, we do permit valid services to perform actions of installations onto sites, and have for a very long time. ManageWP, for example, has had this ability for quite a while. It provides a valid service, letting you manage multiple sites from their dashboard, and yes, install and update plugins. Going back to the example of a plugin that hosts the update code for it’s addons, the ‘service’ is the license you bought for the add-on plugin.

The trick here, and this is what is about to sound like hair splitting, is that it’s not the plugin UI on your site that does the install. In order for Manage WP and Jetpack to work, you have to go to your panel on their sites and install the items. If you wanted to make, say, and let people log in, authenticate their sites, and from that interface use a JSON API to trigger an install, you absolutely, 100%, totally can.

To hit the major talking points:

  • Is Jetpack allowed to do this? Yes.
  • Are you allowed to do this? Yes.
  • Can you have your plugin install things? No.
  • Can your service install things onto a connected site? Yes.
  • Are you allowed to have a marketplace plugin? Not at this time.

I know this is frustrating to a lot of people. The reason it never came up before is no one asked us, and it isn’t our place to run your business or invent all the cool things. The guidelines are guidelines, and not laws or rules, to allow people to interpret them, and you’re always welcome to ask us if something’s okay or not. Or warn us if you’re about to do something you think might get the masses up in a dander.