Linux Foundation Tries To Play Peacemaker In Ongoing WordPress Scuffle
The Linux Foundation on Friday introduced a new method to distribute WordPress updates and plugins that’s not controlled by any one party, in a bid to “stabilize the WordPress ecosystem” after months of infighting.
The FAIR Package Manager project is a response to the legal brawl that erupted last year, pitting WordPress co-creator Matthew Mullenweg, his for-profit hosting firm Automattic, and the WordPress Foundation that he controls, against WP Engine, a rival commercial WordPress hosting firm.
WordPress is a set of widely used technologies for creating and hosting websites. Many elements of WordPress are open source, and companies can host their own instance, but frequently turn to a commercial third-party hoster. And that’s where the trouble started.
Although it’s mostly open source, WordPress is a trademarked term, and those trademarks are controlled by the WordPress Foundation, which Mullenweg founded to promote the project. His company, Automattic, and WP Engine were both built to commercialize WordPress.
In 2024, Mullenweg said that WP Engine needed to license WordPress trademarks. They refused, so he began publicly disparaging the rival firm for its lack of contribution to the open-source project, and took action to limit the company’s access to WordPress software updates. The spat devolved into dueling lawsuits that have yet to be resolved and the ouster of Automattic employees who took issue with Mullenweg’s leadership.
The WordPress community expressed concern about Mullenweg’s actions, and some prominent members of the community were cast out.
The Linux Foundation says the FAIR Package Manager, a mechanism for distributing open-source WordPress plugins, “eliminates reliance on any single source for core updates, plugins, themes, and more, unites a fragmented ecosystem by bringing together plugins from any source, and builds security into the supply chain.”
In other words, it can’t be weaponized against the WordPress community because it won’t be controlled by any one entity.
“The FAIR Package Manager project paves the way for the stability and growth of open source content management, giving contributors and businesses additional options governed by a neutral community,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in a canned press statement. “We look forward to the growth in community and contributions this important project attracts.”
The FAIR Package Manager repo explains the software’s purpose more succinctly.
The software “is a decentralized alternative to the central WordPress.org plugin and theme ecosystem, designed to return control to WordPress hosts and developers. It operates as a drop-in WordPress plugin, seamlessly replacing existing centralized services with a federated, open-source infrastructure.”
In addition to providing some measure of stability, the Linux Foundation sees the FAIR Package Manager as advancing WordPress’ alignment with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation by reducing automatic browser data transmission and telemetry sent to commercial entities, while also supporting modern security practices and strengthening the open source software supply chain.
Karim Marucchi, CEO of Crowd Favorite and one of the individuals whose WordPress.org accounts were shuttered by Mullenweg, welcomed the software debut.
“Hosting the FAIR Package Manager project within the Linux Foundation provides neutral, transparent governance,” he said in a statement. “This structure encourages broad participation and gives organizations the confidence needed to build, adopt and invest securely.”
Josh Koenig, Co-Founder of enterprise website outfit Pantheon, echoed the sentiment.
“This is a really interesting development from the WordPress community,” he said in an emailed statement. “It eliminates a major source of enterprise risk and gives IT organizations a way to manage the software supply chain for their adoption of WordPress. The same kind of capabilities helped Linux gain traction with large organizations, and hopefully the same will be true of WordPress.”
Automattic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ®
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