Yoast Co-Founder Calls For WordPress Leadership Change – Mullenweg Resists via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Joost de Valk, co-founder of the Yoast SEO plugin, called for a alteration successful WordPress governance that removes Mullenweg arsenic the sole determination maker, offering to pb the modulation to a much antiauthoritarian and divers committee that is typical of WordPress stakeholders. Matt Mullenweg disagreed.

Critique Of Mullenweg’s Leadership

Joost says that helium was prompted to talk retired aft Matt Mullenweg’s determination to intermission WordPress services implicit the holidays which inadvertently caused an contented with WordCamp registrations, forcing Joost to unfastened a GitHub summons to hole the problem. The vacation intermission made it wide to Joost one-person power of the WordPress task had go problematic.

Mullenweg’s enactment benignant was called into question, with Joost characterizing him arsenic a Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) whose regularisation was nary longer benevolent. He cited Mullenweg from an interrogation wherever helium states helium doesn’t place arsenic a dictator and suggested the operation “enlightened leader.” Joost scoffed astatine the idea, stating that galore successful the WordPress assemblage would disagree with the self-description of “enlightened leader.”

WordPress Community Lacks Democracy

The blog station notes the irony the WordPress Project’s ngo is to democratize publishing but the WordPress task itself acold from democratic, fundamentally controlled by 1 person. He expressed the content that the existent governance operation doesn’t let for diverseness of opinions and that his restrictive power implicit the WordPress trademark is stifling growth.

Screenshot Of WordPress’s Mission Statement

On the deficiency of diverseness of opinions helium writes:

“You request galore voices, galore ideas, galore backgrounds. You request to clasp diversity. Unfortunately, those with ideas that don’t travel the aforesaid absorption arsenic our existent leader, are being unopen down, rather a fewer adjacent banned…”

One of the changes Joost proposes is simply a loosening of Mullenweg’s grip connected the WordPress trademark to let for much growth:

“The WordPress trademark is fixed to the nationalist domain oregon different dealt with successful specified a mode that each institution tin freely accidental that they bash ‘WordPress hosting’, ‘WordPress support’ etc. Not conscionable due to the fact that that’s the close happening to bash successful my mind, but due to the fact that doing truthful means we let maturation of the presumption and the concepts.”

Joost’s Role and Vision For Change

Lastly, Joost volunteers to pb the alteration astatine WordPress truthful that it becomes a genuinely antiauthoritarian instauration with a governing committee representing each the stakeholders.

He writes:

“Taking backmost the commons means that we effort to perceive each voice, beryllium considerate of each the antithetic usage cases of that commons and bring america each forward.

…I’m here, and consenting to pb done this transition.”

Among the changes that Joost proposes is simply a “federated” WordPress repository, a mode for aggregate plugin and taxable directories tin curate reviews and summation which past update to the different directories, decentralizing the authoritative WordPress taxable and plugin repositories.

He expects to participate discussions with others sometime successful the mediate of January 2025 to travel up with a program for however to determination forward.

Mullenweg Rejects Joost’s Proposals

Matt Mullenweg commented connected Joost’s blog post, offering a passive-aggressive dismissal of everything helium proposed. His remark was veiled successful politeness portion handing retired indirect disapproval and a proposal that Joost should permission the WordPress community.

These parts of Mullenweg’s effect suggest that Joost should commencement his ain assemblage extracurricular of WordPress:

“I deliberation this is simply a large thought for you to pb and bash nether a sanction different than WordPress… There’s truly nary mode to execute everything you privation without starting with a caller slate…”

Here is Mullenweg’s afloat response:

“I deliberation this is simply a large thought for you to pb and bash nether a sanction different than WordPress. There’s truly nary mode to execute everything you privation without starting with a caller slate from a trademark, branding, and radical constituent of view.”

The Internal Struggle Is Already Happening

If Mullenweg resists change, an interior conflict wrong the WordPress assemblage seems inevitable. In fact, momentum for this has already begun; a radical of WordPress contributors precocious signed an open missive seeking governance reform.

The unfastened missive was written by:

• “Core committers and contributors
• Make/WordPress squad elders and contributors
• Others serving successful assorted assemblage roles”

They wrote:

• “We entity to the presumption quo, and judge the WordPress project’s existent interior operating operation threatens the wellness and sustainability of the task and its community.
• We entity to the continued opaqueness of the WordPress governance model.
• We entity to 1 person, Matt Mullenweg, controlling each authoritative infrastructure, including the project’s website, email systems, enactment forums, core, plugin, and taxable repositories, update systems, information tools, connection channels, and different method assets.
• We entity to large decisions being made without assemblage input, advice, oregon support.”

Change is coming. Joost’s connection is simply a mode to execute that alteration successful a mode that protects the halfway principles and assemblage of the WordPress unfastened root project.