Should Child Themes Be Listed on WordPress.org?

There has been some discussion recently on child theme inclusion in the official theme repository. Child themes are WordPress themes that latch onto a parent theme to do something a little extra, whether it be adding additional styles or functionality.

There are a lot of great child themes out there that do some amazing things on top of frameworks like Thematic and Hybrid, but unfortunately those who don’t look for themes anywhere but WordPress.org will probably never hear about them.

I made a site over at Themelets to list all of the child themes you won’t see on the official theme directory a while back, but nothing will beat the promotion of child themes than on the official WordPress website.

Great designers who support WordPress deserve to have their themes listed in the official theme directory. Not only is it a disservice to them, but also to WordPress users who miss out on these awesome themes, such as these free Thematic child themes from Cozmoslabs.

I think as long as the child themes are designed for parent themes already listed in the WordPress.org theme directory, there shouldn’t be any reason why they’re not included. Be sure to vote if you think they should be included.