Issue #230
Happy Friday! It's October 11 and we're covering the checkbox-gate, the WordPress project's new executive director, WPGraphQL, ACF, plugin reviews, and more.

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This week's headlines

1. WordPress.org escalates WP Engine conflict with login checkbox requirement


The ban on WP Engine's access to WordPress.org further escalated this week with the introduction of a new checkbox requiring anyone logging in to confirm they are not affiliated with the hosting company. It's also dragged WordPress.org users and contributors into WP Engine's conflict with Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg.

This week also saw the shock ban on Ryan McCue, a core committer and the creator of the WordPress REST API, while core contributor Andy Fragen has put his contributions on hiatus and Megan Rose, a WordPress Incident Response Team contributor, has quit for her mental health.

As Samantha Cole noted in her report for 404 Media, "Among WordPress community contributors, who keep the open-source project running, this checkbox added to the organization's site is an inflection point in the story of a legal battle that they've been mostly isolated from until today."

While Mullenweg's actions have got many folks posting on social media, others have hunkered down. One prominent contributor who asked not to be named told The Repository that the WordPress co-creator had "created a culture of fear."

"I am an outspoken person but speaking up could impact my business and employees if Matt takes retaliation on us. I feel silenced. Many people are afraid of the repercussions so are keeping their heads down," they said.

2. Mary Hubbard returns to Automattic to lead WordPress project as new executive director


The WordPress project is set to welcome a new executive director later this month with Mary Hubbard assuming the role on October 21. Hubbard is no stranger to WordPress, having worked for Automattic from 2020 to 2023. She started as the General Manager of the WooCommerce marketplace before taking on the role of Chief Product Officer for WordPress.com. More recently, Hubbard has been the Head of TikTok Americas, Governance and Experience, a position she started in January and resigned from this week.

Hubbard replaces Josepha Haden Chomphosy, who left Automattic last week, along with 159 other employees. The departures followed a severance package of $30,000 or six months salary, whichever was higher, offered to those who disagreed with Mullenweg's approach to the ongoing conflict with WP Engine.

3. Automattic hires WPGraphQL creator, plugin to become canonical


"Guessing you didn't have this on your WordPress bingo card today?" posted Jason Bahl on Tuesday, revealing WPGraphQL is set to become a canonical plugin at WordPress.org.

After three and a half years at WP Engine, Bahl has accepted an offer from rival hosting company Automattic to continue his work on the project. In a post on the WPGraphQL blog, Bahl described Automattic as the "perfect home" for the plugin, citing the company's strong track record supporting open source projects.

His move to Automattic was welcomed by many who praised his commitment to WPGraphQL and acknowledged his tough decision to switch employers amid the conflict with WP Engine, including Morten Rand-Hendriksen, a Senior Staff Instructor at LinkedIn Learning, who posted, "Your plugin changed how people work with WP, and IMO you should go wherever you believe you'll get the most support."

4. ACF patches vulnerability following Automattic disclosure misstep


ACF developers at WP Engine have patched a vulnerability affecting both the free and Pro versions of the popular plugin after Automattic broke with established security reporting practices and disclosed the issue on X.

With over 2 million active installations, ACF is a popular tool among WordPress developers and has been caught in the crossfire as the conflict continues between Automattic and WP Engine. WP Engine remains blocked from accessing WordPress.org, and ACF developers can't access their accounts to push updates to the free version hosted in the plugin repository.

Despite the controversy, ACF developers moved quickly to release patched versions of the free and Pro plugins directly to users via a new update mechanism, announced last week, that avoids reliance on updates via WordPress.org. A patched copy of ACF provided to the WordPress Security Team was uploaded to WordPress.org.

5. Plugin Review Team hits zero backlog, reducing wait time to seven days


The WordPress Plugin Review Team achieved a significant milestone last week, bringing the queue for initial plugin reviews down to zero.

A year ago, the review team faced a massive backlog of 1,260 plugins awaiting review following the departure of long-time plugin representative Mika Epstein in July 2023. Developers were told to wait at least 91 days for an initial review. Today, just two plugins are awaiting review, with a current wait time of seven days.

"And the day has come! There are 0 new plugins waiting for review in the WordPress Plugin Directory. Congratulations to the team! Let's keep the queue low!" posted David Pérez, a Hostinger-sponsored plugin reviewer. Cristiano Zanca, a developer and contributor, thanked the review team, posting, "Kudos to the fantastic job of the Plugin Review Team 🙏"
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In other news

WordPress project

> WordPress 6.7 Beta 2 is ready for testing. The final release is still on track to drop on November 12 (WordPress.org News)

> Gutenberg 19.4 is out and brings new "Write" and "Design" modes and updates to the Block Bindings API (Make WordPress Core)

> More than 100 contributors are taking part in the third cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, currently underway (Make WordPress Community)

> The WordPress Hosting Team is expanding the infrastructure that gathers and centralizes JSON data from hosting companies to provide users with a detailed overview of the best hosting options tailored to their needs (Make WordPress Hosting)

> Next week's Developer Hours session will focus on ways to simplify client editing—and is happening on YouTube, not Zoom (YouTube)

> Automattic-sponsored contributor Nick Diego highlights Block Bindings API user interface, Zoom Out mode, new Write and Design modes, updates to WordPress Playground, and a stack of updates to APIs and tools in his October update (WordPress Developer Blog)

Automattic vs WP Engine

> Matt Mullenweg announced on WordPress.org today that Vinny Green, a "former" WordPress community member, has forked WordPress to create FreeWP. But Green says he's done no such thing and is actually working on a new news media company dedicated to the WordPress community and broader ecosystem (WordPress.org | FreeWP)

> Drupal founder Dries Buytaert says the WordPress project could benefit from adopting a contribution credit system similar to Drupal's. Adoption would involve expanding the current governance model to be more distributed and providing clear definitions of "makers" and "takers" within the WordPress ecosystem (Dries Buytaert)

> Lawyer Richard Best has published several excellent articles offering his legal take on the unfolding conflict. In his latest piece, he suggests the WordPress ecosystem is feudal in nature and an "enlightenment" might be on the horizon (WP and Legal Stuff)

> Developer Eric Karkovack explores the threat of private equity to WordPress and how these firms prioritize short-term profits over long-term community contributions and product quality, undermining the open-source values and innovation that sustain the ecosystem (The WP Minute)

> Samuel Sidler, Director of Commercial Strategy at 10up, says the public legal fight between Automattic and WP Engine has thrown up a red flag for risk management teams at enterprise organizations. “It's near impossible to overstate the effect this has on trust in the WordPress brand and product, though the effect is certainly greater than any alleged actions (or lack their of) from WP Engine or Silver Lake,” he writes (delta.blog)

> David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, has criticized Automattic's demand for 8% of WP Engine's revenue as a violation of open source ideals and the GPL license. He argues that Automattic's actions undermine the clarity and certainty of open source licensing and threaten its integrity beyond WordPress (Hey)

WordPress community

> Automattic has joined Meta, Mastodon, Medium and several other social media organizations as an advisor to the newly formed Social Web Foundation (Social Web Foundation)

> HeroPress is celebrating 10 years. Founder Topher DeRosia has published 278 essays in 29 languages from 66 countries. DeRosia is also seeking donations to keep the site going (HeroPress)

> Taco Verdonschot is leaving Yoast to work for its founders, Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt, at their investment firm, Emilia Capital (X)

> SEO expert Jono Alderson talks about what WordPress is doing with SEO (The WP Minute+)

> AccessiCart CEO Bet Hannon on how current laws are shaping web accessibility (Osom to Know)

Business, enterprise & acquisitions

> TechCrunch has unveiled a complete rebuild of its newsroom, offering a sleeker, easier-to-navigate, and faster experience developed by 10up. The project started earlier this year with an upgrade to the WordPress backend using the Block Editor (10up)

> Automattic is helping Little Sun transform lives with a solar-powered lamp (Automattic)

Plugins, products & themes

> Core committer Pascal Birchler has updated his periodic table of plugins, which showcases the 108 most popular plugins for WordPress (Periodic Table of WordPress Plugins)

> Developer Jeff Matson is working on two tools for decentralizing WordPress plugins and themes: Wormhole Sync, a tool for syncing and merging WordPress plugins and themes from external sources, and Wormhole API, a drop-in replacement for the WordPress.org repositories (X)

Security

> The European Union adopted the Cyber Resilience Act this week, introducing regulations for how security should be managed for software products. In Post Status Slack, Patchstack CEO Oliver Sild said there was an opportunity for the WordPress ecosystem to be a trailblazer and lead by example ahead of the regulations coming into force in 36 months' time (European Council)

Conferences & events

> The Italian WordPress community is hosting Core Days, a next gen event aimed at core developers, on November 8-9, 2024, in Rome (Core Days)

> InstaWP is hosting AnyoneCanWP, an online hackathon with a prize pool of $10,000, until October 26 (AnyoneCanWP)

> WooSesh 2024 is set for October 29-30 and will feature 33 speakers, 22 sessions, and the annual Seshies Awards (WP Tavern)

> WordCamp Asia 2025 has put out a call for Wapuu designs. Submissions close on November 4. The event will be held from February 20-22 in Manila, Philippines (WordCamp Asia)

> Voting is now open for the fourth annual Monster's Award 2024. Voting closes on November 20 (TemplateMonster)

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Meanwhile...

🙃 Over a third of the web is caught up in "some high school s!@#" (YouTube)

🔒 Mika Epstein says working for a security company would be "epic fun" (halfelf.org)

👀 Termageddon's Donata Stroink-Skillrud unpacks privacy laws (WP Tavern Jukebox)

🕊️ ICYMI, core committer Tonya Mork's incredible life story (HeroPress)
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