[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #49056: Can we stop bundling default themes?

[WordPress Trac]

#49056: Can we stop bundling default themes?
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 Reporter:  crdunst           |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)      |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal            |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Upgrade/Install   |    Version:
 Severity:  minor             |   Keywords:
  Focuses:  coding-standards  |
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 Maybe this has been raised before - I searched, but couldn't find the same
 suggestion.

 Can WordPress stop bundling themes with upgrades?

 I understand a default theme (such as TwentyTwenty) makes sense with a
 fresh install, but not on existing websites, for a number of reasons:

 **1)** Bundled, but unused themes just mean more code overhead. More
 guessable directories/files for malicious actors to hack.

 **2)** Extra disk space is needed to store these mostly unused themes.
 Individually it's not much space, but multiply it up into millions of
 installs, and cumulatively it's significant.

 **3)** Extra bandwidth when they're downloaded for both WordPress.org
 CDNs, and also for end-user sites.

 I deleted 2020 theme from a client's website when upgrading to 5.3, and
 I've just had to delete it again, presumably after 5.3.1 or 5.3.2 self-
 installed.  They're never going to use one of the default themes (as good
 as they are) for their corporate site, so it's just a waste of everyone's
 time. I'm maintaining dozens of sites, so this gets annoying.

 There's an argument for 'what about if they delete their only theme - it
 needs a theme to default to'.  This doesn't stack up though if the end-
 user can manually delete the default theme, and find themselves in the
 same position.  UI can overcome this to a degree when no themes are
 available with a 'search the repo for a theme, how about twentytwenty
 (maybe the interface does? I've never tried deleting all themes on an
 install).

 Anyway, just my feedback from a regular user/maintainer.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/49056>
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