WordPress Founder Blocks Members Proposing a Fork

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress and owner of Automattic, has blocked the accounts of five members (Joost, Karim, Se Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen—primarily marketers and SEO specialists) in the WordPress.org directory. These members were advocating for the creation of a WordPress fork and a change in the community’s governance model. Matt stated that he welcomes the creation of a fork and blocked the accounts to provide the necessary push to move from talk to action.

According to Matt, forking is beneficial for open projects because even one member rowing in the wrong direction can disrupt collaborative efforts. Forks allow for experimentation with new development approaches, governance models, and leadership styles. Matt noted that the fork discussed by the blocked members contains bold and interesting ideas, and he is curious to see what comes of it. The fork will benefit the community by offering an opportunity to try something different.

Matt also emphasized that the beauty of open-source code lies in the ability to take WordPress and implement one’s own vision in a new project. There’s no need to seek permission—just go ahead and do it. If the new project achieves something worthwhile, the community can bring those improvements back to WordPress. This fluid exchange of ideas between projects is what makes open-source a driver of innovation. Matt proposed holding a joint summit of WordPress and the fork’s developers in a year to evaluate what has been accomplished and what lessons have been learned.

Additionally, Matt made an ironic comment about the idea of creating a decentralized and unmoderated directory of plugins and themes, where authors would have complete freedom, including the freedom to place ad banners in the admin interface and collect user data.

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