No, I don’t mean give them away for free. But put a pin in that, because this idea begins and ends with FAIR.
If you haven’t yet heard about the FAIR Package Manager, the idea is to rethink how software is distributed and managed in the world of open web publishing. FAIR focuses on decentralization, transparency, and giving users more control.
And yes, I’m one of the first Technical Steering Committee’s Co-Chairs.
When I say we should free the plugins and the themes, I mean something I asked myself almost a decade ago…
The (Initial) Question
I remember being on an airplane flying to Japan when I first asked myself this question:
What would the WP world be like if we democratized the extension ecosystem?
Mika Epstein circa 2015
Believe it or not, that note moved to a document, which grew over time, collected all the risks and rewards I could think up. I had logical trains of thought that ended with a failure. But I kept at it. I kept scribbling notes and refining the ideas, until I felt like I had a solid frame.
Sometime in the spring or summer of 2024, I sat and wrote it as a proposal that I had planned to present to folks on the Meta team as a future path for WordPress.org to stop hosting all the world’s plugins and themes, and instead make it a hell of a lot easier for people outside the wordpress.org services to host their own while still remaining findable.
The World Before
20 years ago, the world was a different place with regards to the internet.
Remember, in 2003 Mike and Matt forked b/2 to make WP, and in 2004 MovableType decided to change their license, and in 2005 Git was invented.
So let’s set the table remembering that when WordPress came out with Plugins and Themes it was 2004 and back then it was pretty rare for people to host other people’s stuff. That was actually the problem .org was fixing! Don’t have your own SVN setup? Only have $8 a year hosting (those were the days)? Don’t have a way to save all your versions?
Welcome to the WordPress extension system!
The (Current) Problem
While WP solved the problem of 2004, 20 years passed and everything changed. Everyone’s computer has SVN and GIT now (more or less…), and everyone can host code on GitHub or GitLab or even roll their own pretty easily.
It’s almost like WordPress paved a road for self hosting being spread across the developer landscape. Not only can creators of content host their own websites, devs can host and manage their own updates.
And WordPress created a new issue of their own making: a gate. There are rules about what you can and cannot host, how you can behave, and frankly … I say this as one who was the Gatekeeper for too many years, that gate is a necessary evil.
By hosting code and content from other people, WordPress.org places itself in harms’ way. They became responsible for how everything was portrayed and published on the plugin/theme search pages, and that gate had to have rules to protect itself and ensure its continued existence. Like trademarks. You have to be vigilant because places like Facebook will try and shut the whole directory down if they decide it’s infringing.
That gate has become a hinderance to the democratized usage of WordPress.
To get around the rules of the gate, people host their own code now. Sure there are a couple options (EDD Updater, GitHub updater, there’s a plugin self-updater out there as well). But because of that gate, they aren’t findable. This hurts WordPress. It stifles growth, it makes it harder for people to make their living on WP, and that is a net loss for everyone.
My (Then) Proposed Solution
WordPress.org should stop hosting non-official Plugins and Themes (including Akismet) and instead host the following:
- Example Plugins (hello dolly)
- Core Plugins (Classic Editor, Classic Menus, HealthCheck)
- Core Themes (
twenty-*) - A directory of other plugin and theme directories
That last one is the crux of the whole matter. We give hosting back to the developers (just like we gave hosting to the content creators) and then we welcome in their content without liability.
The thing was, I knew damn well this is something that WordPress.org would fight me over. Stop hosting? Make that radical of a change to completely rewrite how we access code? Distribute everything and own nothing?
An uphill battle to say the least.
So, like I did every time I opened that doc, I re-read it, made some tweaks, ran it though and AI on a whim and cleaned it up even more, and I closed it.
The FAIR Future
This brings me back to FAIR.
Sounds like it was made for this proposal, huh?
I cannot take credit. It’s lightning striking the same place twice. But that makes sense, doesn’t it? No, I’m not talking about how WordPress and I share a birthday, I’m talking about how I absolutely couldn’t be the only human on the planet with this idea in their head.
Naturally I dove in. I helped writing the docs, translating High Geek explanations into Corporate Lingo, pitching and refining ideas, collecting information from the developers who were far better at these things than I am, learning about AtProto.
When I was nominated to be on the TSC, I sat with my wife to discuss the implications and risks of accepting. There was a very real possibility this could destroy my career, and I’m a developer looking at 50 while being female. Finding another job, if this went badly, could become impossible.
But I have a poster. “Flynn Lives.” For years it hung on the wall across from my desk, and I would look up at it and remember the line. “I fight for the users.”
I started helping in the WP forums to help the users. I joined plugins for the same thing. I ran plugins with the dual view of fighting to make things easier for users and developers. And I failed, trying to do that. But I’ve learned and grown and changed.
In order for WordPress to move from being that joke to “just a blog” CMS that ‘real’ developers mock, to grow the ecosystem and help everyone make money, to get even bigger while still giving back to everyone, distribution is key.
Democratize Distribution
FAIR is at step one of the plan.
Today, the plugin can disconnect you from WordPress.org for updates (which has the added benefit of more data privacy). There’s only one distribution source right now (thank you AspirePress! none of this is possible without you) but it proves you can do this. It’s got some work left to do and we welcome everyone’s eyes and hands to help. It is very much an MVP release (something I stressed over and over during the dev cycle, to keep folks out of the weeds).
Next is the part where we build out the system to hand the keys to the developers. No more AppStore and rules. Push what you think is right to push.
Will some people abuse that? Of course. Someone will push weekly updates so you’re always being notified. Someone will cover the admin panel with ads. Those things happen today, and the plugin review team cannot keep up because there are more devs than reviewers.
But there are things we can and will do to help and protect users, to empower developers, and assist the hosting companies and more. Everyone benefits from this future.
We have a plan, and we hope you come with us.
Other people collaborating with FAIR have blogged as well:
NB: Currently Flynn Lives is on loan to my barber for his art wall, and instead I have Nichelle Nichols and Carrie Fisher.
